RELATION  OF   XATIO'AL  GOTERXMENT 
TO  DOMESTIC  COMMERCE 


SPEECH 


OF 


HON.  GEORGE  F.  HOAR 


IN  THE 


SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


Tuesday,  July  1,  1884. 


WASHINGTON. 
1    e  4  . 


Avery  Architectural  and  Fine  Arts  Library 
Gift  of  Seymour  B.  Durst  Old  York  Library 


SPEECH 

OF 

HON.  GEOEGE  F.  HOAE. 


The  Senate,  as  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  having  under  consideration  the  bill 
<H.  R.  7012)  making  appropriations  for  the  construction,  repair,  and  preservation 
of  certain  public  works  on  rivers  and  harbors,  and  for  other  purposes — 

Mr.  HOAR  said: 

Mr,  Peesidext:  I  wish  to  express  my  views  of  the  relation  of  the 
National  Government  to  domestic  commerce. 

I  am  one  of  those  persons  who  believe  the  powers  conferred  by  the 
people  on  the  National  Government  were  created  to  be  exercised.  There 
is  no  economy  in  wasting  strength.  Nothing  is  so  extravagant  as  suf- 
fering great  public  properties  to  remain  unused.  Great  as  have  been 
the  achievements  of  the  American  people  in  developing  the  resources  of 
this  continent  for  the  use  of  man,  there  are  far  greater  resources  still 
unused,  which  the  power  of  the  nation  alone  is  adequate  to  unfold. 
Nothing  stands  in  the  way  of  our  contesting  again  with  Great  Britain 
her  supremacy  on  the  sea.  of  taking  our  rightfal  and  leading  place  in 
supplying  the  markets  of  the  world  as  well  as  bringing  together  the 
distant  parts  of  our  own  territory,  and  multiplying  many  fold  our  agri- 
cultural and  mineral  wealth,  but  the  want  of  a  discreet  and  liberal 
exercise  of  the  powers  vested  in  Congress  for  this  very  purpose. 

There  are  two  difficulties  which  we  encounter.  The  first  is  from 
that  school  of  statesmanship  which  dreads  and  resists  every  exercise  of 
the  functions  of  government  not  absolutely  necessary  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  state  and  the  security  of  life  and  property.  The  other  is 
from  a  widespread  popular  belief  that  this  class  of  expenditures  is  dis- 
honestly made.  But  the  theory  of  the  strict  constructionist,  however 
it  may  be  vindicated  by  experience,  in  regard  to  many  of  the  relations 
of  government  to  the  people  is  surely  out  of  place  here.  Government 
has  its  police  powers:  it  exercises  its  authority  for  restraint  or  for 
exaction  over  the  individual  human  will.  The  use  of  such  powers 
should  be  confined  to  the  limits  of  absolute  necessity.  They  become 
odious  to  those  who  are  subjected  to  them.  They  are  the  instru- 
ments of  tyranny  and  the  temptation  of  ambition.  Let  these  powers 
be  limited  by  a  construction  as  strict  as  may  be  compatible  with  the 
absolute  safety  of  the  state.  The  maxim  the  world  is  governed  too 
much"  is  the  witness  of  the  experience  of  mankind  of  their  abuse. 

But  to  the  power  to  regulate  commerce  no  such  objection  applies. 
It  is  wholly  beneficent.  It  is  a  senseless  and  unreasoning  fear  which 
dreads  putting  forth  the  national  strength  in  these  great  public  works 
through  which  every  artery  and  vein  of  commerce  throbs  with  a  new 
life.  Surely  if  we  can  call  the  great  inanimate  forces  of  nature  into  the 
service  of  man  we  may  rightfully  avail  ourselves  of  the  united  strength 
of  the  50,000,000  who  make  up  the  Republic  to  build  great  public  ways, 


4 


to  aid  the  railroad,  to  open  the  harbor  on  lake  or  ocean,  to  clear  the 
channel  of  thp  great  river  for  the  commerce  of  the  world.  Under  this 
generous  and  wise  policy  taxation  itself,  everywhere  else  a  burden, 
becomes  only  a  source  of  wealth.  The  agencies  of  destruction  are  turned 
to  the  protection  of  works  enduring  as  the  continent  itself.  The  great 
engineers  of  the  Army,  relieved  from  the  employments  of  war,  turn 
their  genius  in  a  new  direction — 

Bid  the  broad  arch  the  dangerous  flood  contain 
The  mole,  projected,  break  the  roaring  main  ; 
Back  to  his  bounds  their  subject  sea  command, 
And  roll  obedient  rivers  through  the  land — 
These  honors  Peace  to  happy  nations  bringfs  ; 
These  are  imperial  arts,  and  worthy  kings. 

If  any  construction  of  the  Constitution  can  be  considered  as  settled 
by  legislative  precedent,  by  general  consent,  and  by  the  opinions  of  the 
great  leaders  and  authorities  of  all  parties,  it  is  this:  That  the  power 
to  regulate  commerce  among  the  States  has  been  vested  by  the  Consti- 
tution in  Congress  as  completely  as  it  before  existed  in  the  States;  that 
it  includes  the  power  to  facilitate  commerce  by  all  appropriate  public 
works ;  and  that  it  is  a  power  granted  not  for  purposes  of  limitation  or 
restraint,  but  as  a  beneficial  power  to  be  freely  exercised.  Mr.  Calhoun, 
of  all  our  statesmen  the  most  jealous  of  national  authority,  declares  in 
his  report  of  June  26, 1846: 

It  was  not  to  limit  or  prohibit  it  as  a  power  of  a  dangerous  character.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  utmost  utility,  and  on  the  proper  control 
of  which  the  prosperity  of  the  States  essentially  depended. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  not  from  constitutional  scruple  that  we  hesitate  to 
employ  for  the  public  advantage  the  beneficent  forces  which  the  Con- 
stitution places  in  our  hands.  It  is  the  fear  of  a  wild  and  unreason- 
ing public  outcry.  I  state  the  result  of  careful  observation  and  of  large 
experience  in  legislation  here  when  I  affirm  my  belief  that  Congress 
has  not  dared  to  deal  with  the  question  of  restoring  our  carrying  trade 
by  sea,  with  the  question  of  creMing  and  maintaining  a  navy,  or  with 
this  matter  of  developing  our  great  internal  public  ways  in  the  spirit 
of  a  true  ^visdom  or  a  true  economy.  ^Ye  have  not  only  not  dealt  with 
them  as  other  great  nations  deal  with  them,  but  we  have  not  dealt  with 
them  on  sound  principles,  as  a  private  man  with  like  interests  and 
resources  would  deal  with  them. 

Mr.  Webster  declared  in  1824: 

High  rank  among  the  nations  results  more  than  from  anything  else  from  that 
military  power  which  we  can  cause  to  be  water-borne,  and  from  that  extent  of 
commerce  which  we  are  able  to  maintain  throughout  the  world.  (See  Webster, 
volume  3,  page  134.) 

The  United  States,  with  its  18,000  miles  of  seacoast,  is  no  longer 
a  naval  power.  Yotir  flag  carries  with  it  no  terror  at  sea,  for  you 
have  neither  guns  nor  ships  of  war  to  support  it.  You  are  not  only 
without  the  means  of  making  yourselves  formidable  by  attack,  but 
you  could  not  without  a  long  period  of  preparation  defend  your  own 
coasts.  It  is  not  England  or  France,  Italy  or  Spain  onlj;  with  whom 
you  are  bound  over  by  your  own  weakness  to  keep  the  peace.  You 
could  not  if  you  would  have  supported  the  policy  of  the  last  Secretary 
of  State  in  regard  to  the  American  continent.  It  is  doubtful  if  you  had 
the  naval  force  to  prevent  Chili  from  laying  San  Francisco  under  con- 
tribution in  case  she  had  resented  our  interference. 

An  eminent  naval  officer  was  called  on  to  respond  to  the  toast  to  the 


5 


Navy  at  the  meeting  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  in  this  city  last  sum- 
mer. I  do  not  envy  him  if  the  report  I  have  seen  of  his  speech  be  true, 
as  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  when  he  was  compelled  to  answer  the 
suggestion  that  we  must  depend  on  torpedoes  and  not  on  sailors  for  the 
safety  of  our  chief  cities. 

Rear-Admiral  Eodgers.  responding  to  the  third  toast.  "  The  Na%-y,'"  alluded  to 
the  co-operation  of  the  naval  with  the  land  forces  during  the  war.  Speaking  of 
the  Navy  of  to-day,  he  said  : 

"  So  far  as  I  know  we  have  not  even  one  good  gun  of  modern  caliber  ashore 
or  afloat,  in  the  Army  or  the  Xavy.  ^yhat  is  more,  I  fear  we  have  no  trained 
artisans  nor  any  forges  to  make  guns.  Our  old  cannon  are  as  obsolete  as  the 
flint-lock  muskets  of  1812,  and  we  have  not  one  efficient  ship  of  war.  England 
is  at  this  moment  building  twelve  great  ironclads,  France  sixteen,  and  the  Ital- 
ians two  of  the  largest  ironclads  in  the  world,  and  we.  in  this  rich  country,  with 
its  enormous  seacoasts,  have  been  standing  idle."" 

General  Rosecraxs.  who  sat  near  the  speaker,  suggested  that  this  country  de- 
pended on  torpedoes.  Admiral  Rodgers  immediately  took  issue  with  him,  and 
said  that  while  torpedoes  were  not  implements  of  warfare  to  be  disregarded, 
they  were  an  utterly  unreliable  power,  and  their  greatest  value  is  in  their 
moral  effect. 

Mr.  Webster  declared  at  Charleston  in  June,  18'25: 

"SVe  have  a  commerce  that  leaves  no  sea  unexplored  ;  navies  which  take  no 
law  from  superior  force. 

Is  this  true  of  our  50,000,000  to-day? 

The  delusion  that  the  absence  of  American  shipping  from  the  ocean  is 
due  to  the  rebel  cruisers  and  the  encouragement  of  rebel  cruisers  by  Great 
Britain  in  refuted  by  statistics.  In  186S.  four  years  after  the  Alabama 
went  down  in  the  British  Channel,  the  American  registered  tonnage  was 
1,565,732;  in  1682  it  had  fallen  to  1.292/294;  a  loss  of  273.438.  In 
1858  the  registered  steam  tonnage  was  (American)  221.939:  in  1882, 
154,570;  a  loss  of  67,369. 

The  percentage  of  American,  British,  and  total  foreign  tonnage  en- 
tered at  seaports  of  the  United  States  from  foreign  countries  was: 


1S6S. 

1882. 

Difference. 

Per  cent. 
44.26 
42. 15 
55.  74 

Per  cent. 
20. 25 
.52.  40 
79.  75 

Per  cent. 
24.01 

British  

Foreign  

In  1856  the  American  percentage  was 71.56:  in  1861.  66.35:  in  1882, 
20.25. 

The  secretary  of  the  National  Board  of  Trade,  from  whom  these  sta- 
tistics are  taken,  well  says: 

A  few  years  hence,  unless  adequate  measures  of  relief  shall  be  promptly  ap- 
plied, we  shall  have  no  carrying  trade  whatever  upon  any  ocean;  on  the  At- 
lantic we  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  any  now. 

Great  Britain  owes  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  her  ocean 
steamship  lines  to  a  liberal  system  of  subsidies.  Even  now  when  her 
great  steamship  lines  are  established  in  their  command  of  the  world's 
carrying  trade  she  pays  out  for  ocean  mail  service  a  considerable  sum 
annually  more  than  she  receives  in  postage. 

I  do  not  fail  to  appreciate  the  gravity  of  other  objections  to  a  system 
of  subsidies,  nor  do  I  deem  it  for  the  interest  of  the  United  States  to 
maintain  a  large  navy.  Still  less  would  I  put  myself  in  opposition  to 
that  wise  and  healthy  public  sentiment  which  demands  a  rigid  economy 


6 


in  expenditure.  No  dollar  of  the  public  money  should  be  taken  from 
the  Treasury  unle-ss  for  a  purpose  which  would  command  the  assent  of 
the  people  when  the  facts  and  reasons  were  known.  But  the  American 
people  are  entitled  to  have  their  great  business  interests  dealt  with  by 
statesmen  who  are  not  constantly  flinching  and  cringing;  who  are  not 
afraid  that  their  public  and  pei-sonal  character  can  not  stand  against 
"senseless  imputations  of  dishonesty.  If  the  Congress  be  a  den  of  thieves 
let  us  abandon  our  Constitution.  Certainly  the  Republic  is  a  failure 
if  it  can  not  wield  those  national  forces  which  are  solely  peacef  ul  and 
beneficial  because  of  the  iniquity  and  corruption  which  must  attend 
their  exercise. 

Who  can  doubt  that  a  sovereign  like  the  half-savage  Peter  the  Great 
or  like  the  accomplished  Emperor  of  Brazil  would  largely  iucrease  the 
value  of  our  product  to  the  producer  and  reduce  its  cost  to  the  con- 
sumer by  moderate  and  judicious  expenditure  in  removing  the  obstruc- 
tions to  transportation?  What  I  complain  of  is  not  that  we  do  not 
adopt  the  methods  of  other  nations.  Our  own  may  be  better,  I  do 
not  now  complain  that  we  do  not  imitate  Great  Britain  in  the  policy 
by  which  she  has  gained  and  preserved  the  sovereignty  of  the  seas.  I 
do  not  now  complain  that  we  do  not  create  a  navy.  I  am  not  at  this 
moment  complaining  that  we  have  neglected  the  lessons  of  our  own 
experience  and  the  conclusions  of  our  wisest  and  most  thorough  inves- 
tigators. But  I  demand  that  we  shall  consider  all  these  things  on 
their  merits;  that  we  shall  treat  them  and  discuss  them  and  vote  upon 
them  as  things  that  may  be  honestly  done  or  honestly  let  alone.  I 
would  insert  in  the  river  and  harbor  bill  no  single  item,  the  public 
usefulness  of  which  can  not  be  made  so  clear  in  the  report  of  the  com- 
mittee that  it  will  command  with  substantial  unanimity  the  support 
of  those  persons  who  will  fairly  and  consistently  give  it  their  atten- 
tion. If  the  American  Congress  shall  be  driven  from  its  duty  by  fear 
of  imputations  upon  its  integrity  it  will  go  far  toward  a  confession 
that  such  imputations  are  not  undeserved. 

We  are  a  great  producing  and  a  great  consuming  country.  We  are 
not  only  great  producers  of  raw  material,  but  are  and  ought  to  be  great 
manufacturers.  While  we  aspire  to  our  full  share  of  the  occupation  of 
carrying  for  other  nations  this  shiire  will  always  be  of  far  less  impor- 
tance than  the  carrying  we  do  for  ourselves.  It  is  manifestly  for  our 
interest  that  our  product  should  be  of  the  greatest  possible  value  to 
the  producer  and  of  the  lowest  possible  cost  to  the  consumer.  In  so 
far  as  we  are  ourselves  consumers  this  is  plainly  true.  It  is  equally 
true  so  far  as  we  provide  for  the  consumption  of  other  nations.  It  is 
essential  to  our  successful  competition  with  other  nations  either  as 
manufacturers  or  as  producers  of  food  that  we  should  reduce  very  largely 
the  cost  of  our  product.  There  are  two  policies  proposed  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  result.  One  is  the  reduction  of  wages.  The  other 
the  reduction  of  the  cost  of  transportation. 

The  reduction  of  wages  whether  on  farm  or  in  factory  is  wholly  in- 
admissible. Upon  their  maintenance  and  increase  depend  not  only 
the  comfort  of  unnumbered  American  homes  but,  as  I  firmly  believe, 
the  destiny  of  the  Republic  itself.  I  wdll  not  accept  the  teachings  of 
that  political  economy  which  would  persuade  me  that  the  fate  of  the 
workingman  everywhere  is  to  toil  for  bare  life.  I  shall  despair  of  my 
country  when  I  am  compelled  to  believe  in  such  a  necessity.  Comfort- 
able homes,  abundant  food,  education,  leisure  must  be  earned  by  the 


7 


workingmen  in  whom  Providence  has  vested  the  government  of  this 
country  or  it  V7ill  perish. 

The  cost  of  transportation  adds  nothing  to  intrinsic  value.  It  is  pure 
tax.  It  is  burden,, and  nothing  but  burden.  Any  course  of  legisla- 
tion, any  reasonable  expenditure  which  tends  to  reduce  or  to  annihi- 
late it  is  wholly  beneficial.  So  far  as  we  can  institute  a  policy  which 
shall  annihilate  the  great  spaces  of  the  country  we  inhabit  we  take- 
from  our  chief  rival,  Great  Britain,  the  advantage  of  her  station  on  the 
sea.  Surpassing  her  in  everything  else,  compelling  her  to  depend  on  us 
for  lood  and  for  cotton,  if  we  can  make  as  nearly  as  possible  our  whole 
territory  a  seaboard  by  the  improvement  of  our  great  and  wonderful 
opportunities  for  internal  water  transportation,  we  can  reduce  her  both, 
in  commerce  and  business  future  to  a  second  rank. 

The  removal  of  the  burden  of  the  cost  of  transportation  of  food  and, 
material,  important  as  it  is  to  the  rest  of  the  country,  is  ^^tal  to  New 
England,  and  especially  to  the  State  which  I  represent.  She  has  to- 
transport  over  vast  spaces  her  food,  her  material,  and  her  product. 
Bringing  across  the  continent  her  food,  her  coal,  her  iron,  her  leather, 
her  wool,  and  her  cotton,  she  sends  her  product  back  across  the  con- 
tinent to  be  sold  in  competition  with  the  established  iodnstries  and 
cheap  labor  of  Europe  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  rising  home  manufacture 
of  the  West  and  South  on  the  other.  Boston,  of  all  the  five  great  ports 
of  export,  is  the  farthest  in  distance  from  the  producer.  New  England 
is  the  farthest  in  distance  from  the  market  of  all  the  great  manufacturing 
centers.  The  interest  of  New  England  is  to  make  the  percentage  of 
the  cost  of  transport  on  food  and  material  and  product  as  small  as  poS' 
sible.    That  alone  can  give  her  equality. 

The  doctrine  of  internal  improvement  is  a  Massachusetts  doctrine. 
She  originated  it.  She  has  furnished  its  ablest  and  most  zealous  de- 
fenders.   In  a  letter  dated  February  2, 1837,  John  Quincy  Adams  says: 

The  great  effort  of  my  administration  was  to  mature  into  a  permanent  and 
regular  system  the  application  of  all  the  superfluous  revenue  of  the  Union  to  in- 
ternal improvement;  improvement  which  at  this  day  would  have  afforded 
high  wages  and  constant  employment  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  laborers  and 
in  which  every  dollar  expended  would  have  repaid  itself  fourfold  in  the  en- 
hanced value  of  the  public  lands.  With  this  system  in  ten  years  from  this  day 
the  surface  of  the  whole  Union  would  have  been  checkered  over  with  railroads 
and  canals.  It  may  still  be  done,  half  a  century  later,  and  with  the  limping  gait 
of  State  legislation  and  private  adventure.  I  would  have  done  it  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  affairs  of  the  nation  ;  I  had  laid  the  foundation  of  it  all  by  a  reso- 
lution offered  to  the  Senate  in  1806,  and  adopted  by  that  body  under  another's 
name.  The  Journals  of  the  Senate  are  my  vouchers.  It  called  forth  the  first 
report  of  Albert  Gallatin,  then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  upon  internal  im- 
provement. 

This  report  of  Albert  Gallatin  was  made  to  the  Senate  on  the  4th  of 
•        April,  1808.    Few  of  our  state  papers  equal  it  in  interest  and  impor- 
tance.   It  embodies  the  opinions  of  .John  Quincy  Adams,  as  he  repeat- 
edly declared.    Gallatin's  own  authority  is  hardly  inferior  to  that  of 
Adams. 

I  give  a  brief  abstract  of  Mr.  Gallatin's  report,  which  shows  its  far- 
reaching  character: 

Whenever  the  annual  expense  of  transportation  on  a  certain  route  in  its  nat- 
ural state  exceeds  the  interest  on  the  capital  employed  in  improving  the  com- 
munication and  the  annual  expense  of  transportation  (exclusively  of  the  tolls)  by 
the  improved  route,  the  difference  is  an  annual  additional  income  to  the  nation — 

It  makes  no  difference  whether  the  tolls  pay  the  interest  on  the  cost 
or  not — 

Tue  general  gain  is  not  confined  to  the  difference  between  the  expenses  of 


8 


the  transportation  of  those  articles  which  had  formerly  been  conveyed  by  that 
route,  but  many  which  were  brought  to  market  by  other  channers  wilf  then 
find  a  new  and  more  advantageous  direction:  and  those  which  on  account  of 
their  distance  or  weight  could  not  be  transported  in  any  manner  whatever,  will 
acquire  a  value  and  become  a  clear  addition  to  the  national  wealth. 

Private  capital  will  uot  answer. 

First.  Capital  is  so  in  demand  that  it  is  not  readily  subscribed  to  ob- 
jects whose  profit  is  remote.  Less  sums  than  needed  being  sul)scribed 
at  first,  work  proceeds  slowly  and  interest  lost 

Second.  One  canal  comparatively-  useless  until  others  l)eyond  com- 
pleted too  extensive  or  distant  to  be  embraced  by  the  same  individuals. 

The  General  Government  alone  can  remove  these  obstacles,  and  thereby 
reduce  expense  to  the  lowest  rate. 

Good  roads  and  canals  chief  strengtheners  of  the  Union. 

RECOMMEXD.\TIOXS. 

First.  A  series  of  great  canals  along  the  Atlantic  coast  completing 
a  tide- water  inland  navigation  from  Boston  to  Saint  Mary's,  Ga.,  then 
the  southeastern  extremity  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States. 

Second.  Communication  between  Atlantic  and  Western  rivers. 

Four  artificial  roads. 

Improvement  of  navigation  of  Atlantic  rivers  by  canals,  &c. 
Louisville  Canal. 

Also,  in  future  canal  from  Mississippi  River  to  Atlantic,  cost,  $10,- 
000,000. 

Third.  Communications  between  Atlantic  rivers  and  Saint  Lawrence 
and  lakes. 

Fourth.  Interior  canals. 

Fifth.  Turnpike  and  artificial  roads. 

Mr.  Gallatin  estimates  the  cost  of  all  these  works,  which  he  deems 
"of  national  and  first-rate  importance  "  and  which  he  says  ''seem  in 
the  first  instance  to  claim  the  support  of  the  General  Government, at 
$20,000,000.  This  does  not  include  the  cost  of  a  canal  from  the  Mis- 
sissippi River  to  the  Atlantic  to  be  accomnlished  later  at  an  estimated 
cost  of  $10,000,000. 

In  view  of  the  ferocity  of  some  modern  criticisms,  it  is  interesting  to 
read  the  following  suggestions  from  Mr.  Jefferson's  great  financial  sec- 
retary: 

The  great  geographical  features  of  the  country  have  been  solely  adhered  to  in 
pointing  out  those  lines  of  communication ;  and  these  appear  to  embrace  all  the 
great  interests  of  the  Union  and  to  be  calculated  to  diffuse  and  increase  the  na- 
tional wealth  in  a  very  genei-al  way  by  opening  an  intercourse  Ijetween  the 
remotest  extremes  of  the  United  States.  Yet  it  must  necessarilj-  result  from  an 
adherence  to  that  principle  that  tho.se  partsof  the  Atlantic  States  through  which 
the  great  Western  and  Xorthwestern  communications  will  be  carried  must,  in 
addition  to  the  general  advantages  in  which  they  will  participate,  receive  from 
tho.se  communications  gi-eater  local  and  immediate  benefits  than  the  Eastern, 
and  perhaps  Southern  States.  As  the  expense  must  be  defrayed  from  the  gen- 
eral funds  of  the  Union,  justice,  and  perhaps  policy  not  less  than  justice,  seem 
to  require  that  a  number  of  local  improvements,  sufficient  to  eqiuilize  the  ad- 
vantages, should  also  be  undertaken  in  those  States,  parts  of  States,  or  districts 
which  are  less  immediatelj'  interested  in  those  inland  communications.  Arith- 
metical precision  can  not,  indeed,  be  obtained  in  objects  of  that  kind :  nor  would 
an  apportionment  of  the  moneys  applied  according  to  the  population  of  each 
State  be  either  just  or  practicable,  since  roads,  and  particularly  canals,  are  often 
of  greater  utility  to  the  States  which  they  unite  than  to  those  through  which 
they  pass.  But  a  sufficient  number  of  local  improvements,  consisting  either  of 
roads  or  canals,  may,  without  any  material  difficulty,  be  selected  so  as  to  do 
substantial  justice  and  give  general  satisfaction.  Without  pretending  to  sug- 
gest what  would  be  the  additional  sum  necessary  for  that  object,  it  will,  for  the 
sake  of  round  numbers,  be  estimated  at  S3,400,000. 


9 

These  expenditures  which,  not  including  ten  millions  for  the  canal 
from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Atlantic,  amount  in  all  to  $-2(^.000,000,  Mr. 
Gallatin  proposes  to  defray  by  an  annual  appropriation  of  000, 000, 
extending  over  a  period  of  ten  years. 

Mr.  Gallatin  estimates  the  annual  permanent  revenue  of  the  United 
States  from  1809  to  1815  at  fourteen  millions,  and  the  necessary  annual 
expenditure  on  the  peace  establishment  at  eight  millions  and  a  half, 
including  forty-six  hundred  thousand  for  principal  and  interest  of  the 
public  debt. 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  he  proposes  an  expenditure  for  inter- 
nal improvements  alone,  not  reckoning  any  sum  devoted  to  harl)ors 
either  on  the  ocean  or  the  lakes.  e(|ualto  14  per  cent,  of  the  entire  na- 
tional income,  and  equal  to  about  25  per  cent,  of  the  sum  expended  by 
the  nation  for  all  other  purposes,  and  to  more  than  50  per  cent,  of  the 
expenditure  for  all  other  purposes,  exclusive  of  the  public  debt.  The 
actual  expenditure  fell  far  short  of  Mr.  Gallatin's  estimate,  l)eiug  but 
fifty-three  hundred  and  eleven  thousand  in  1810  for  all  purposes  other 
than  the  debt. 

If  we  were  to  expend  the  same  proportion  of  our  revenue  on  this  ob- 
ject to-day,  as  was  proposed  by  Gallatin  in  1808.  we  should  have  de- 
voted fifty-six  and  a  half  millions  in  1882  to  internal  improvements 
alone. 

INIr.  Adams  repeatedly  records  in  his  diary  his  unchanged  opinion 
upon  this  question. 

June  25,  1830.  he  says: 

I  have  cherished  the  i)rinciple  and  the  system  of  internal  improvement  under 
a  conviction  that  it  was  for  this  nation  the  only  path  to  increasino^  comfort  and 
well-being,  to  honor,  to  glory,  and  finally  to  the  general  improvement  of  the 
condition  of  mankind.  This  system  has  had  its  fiiict nations  from  the  time  of 
the  establishment  of  the  present  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  During  the 
administration  of  Mr.  Monroe  it  was  constantly  acquiring  strength  in  Congress 
and  in  the  iniblic  opinion.  It  was  then  favored  by  Calhoun  and  Lowndes,  both 
of  whom  had  hopes  of  rising  upon  it.  and  with  them  the  State  of  South  Carolina 
was  devoted  to  it.  The  combination  in  Congress  became  by  this  means  so  strong 
that  it  overpowered  the  resistance  of  Mr.  Monroe  and  produced  the  act  of  Con- 
gress of  April,  1824.  The  slaveholders  of  the  South  have  since  discovered  that 
it  will  operate  against  their  interests.  The  cause  will  no  doubt  survive  me,  and 
if  the  Union  is  destined  to  continue  it  will  no  doubt  ultimately  triumph. 

December  20,  1831 : 

On  my  way  home  from  the  House  I  stopped  at  the  Treasury  and  had  an  hour 
of  convei'sation  with  the  Secretary.  I  told  him  I  should  propose  to  reserve  as 
much  as  five  millions  a  year  to  purposes  of  internal  improvement. 

January  6,  1832,  conversation  with  General  Adair: 

He  spoke  with  contempt  of  the  mania  for  internal  improvements,  which,  he 
said,  was  a  raging  disease  throughout  the  country.  I  said  I  was  much  afiected 
with  the  disease  myself. 

December  22,  1824,  conversation  with  James  Barbour: 
As  to  internal  improvements  mj'  opinions  had  been  published  in  most  of  the 
newspapers  in  extracts  of  letters  from  me,  and  had  no  doubt  been  seen  bj-him. 
Since  the  act  of  Congress  establishing  the  Cum])erland  road  there  had  been  no 
constitutional  question  worth  disputing  about  involved  in  the  discussion.  It  was 
certainly  a  great  power  to  be  exercised  by  Congress,  and  perhaps  liable  to  great 
abuses.  So  were  all  the  other  great  powers  of  Congress :  and  the  control  over  it 
was  in  the  organization  of  the  Government,  the  elective  franchise,  the  State  au- 
thorities, and  the  good  sense  and  firmness  of  the  people. 

December  27,  1831: 

I  said  I  was  no  worshipper  of  the  tariff,  but  of  internal  improvement,  for  the 
pursuit  of  which  by  Congress  as  a  system  I  claimed  to  be  the  first  mover.  It 
was  by  a  resolution  which  I  offered  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  on  the 
23d  of  February,  1807. 


10 


July  30,  1834' 

My  own  system  of  administration  was  to  make  the  national  domain  the  inex- 
haustible fund  for  progressing  and  increasing  internal  improvement. 

Mr.  Adams  charges  that  the  slaveholders  thought  the  policy  of  in- 
ternal improvement  adverse  1x)  their  interest,  and  that  their  opposition 
caused  its  failure.  But,  however  this  may  be,  the  greatevSt  of  our  early 
statesmen  full}'  coincided  with  his  opinions. 

Mr.  Clay  thought  if  Congress  did  not  exercise  the  power  there  would 
be  a  division  of  the  Union  by  the  line  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains. 

Mr.  Madison  did  not  find  in  the  Ck)nstitution  powers  as  extensive  as 
he  thought  desirable  for  the  purpose,  but  eagerlj'  urged  an  amendment 
of  the  Constitution  to  supply  the  needed  authority. 

In  his  message  of  December  23, 1811,  communicating  to  Congress  the 
act  of  the  State  of  New  York  in  reference  to  the  Erie  Canal,  he  says: 

The  utility  of  canal  navigation  is  universally  admitted.  It  is  no  less  certain 
that  scarcely  any  country  offers  more  extensive  opportunities  for  that  branch  of 
improvements  than  the  United  States,  and  none  perhaps  inducements  equally 
persuasive  to  make  the  most  of  them.  The  particular  undertaking  contemplated 
by  the  State  of  New  York,  which  marks  an  honorable  spirit  of  enterprise  and 
comprises  objects  of  national  as  well  as  more  limited  importance,  will  secure  the 
attention  of  Congress  to  the  signal  advantages  to  be  derived  to  the  United  States 
from  a  general  system  of  internal  communication.and  conveyance,  and  suggest 
to  their  consideration  whatever  steps  may  be  proper  on  their  part  toward  its  in- 
troduction and  accomplishment.  As  some  of  these  advantages  have  an  Intimate 
connection  with  the  arrangements  and  exertions  for  the  general  security,  it  is  at 
a  period  calling  for  these  that  the  merits  of  such  a  system  will  be  seen  in  their 
strongest  lights. 

In  his  seventh  and  eighth  annual  messages  Mr.  Madison  reiterates  his  urgent 
desire  that  Congress  shall  establish  the  roads  and  canals  "  which  can  best  be  ex- 
ecuted under  the  national  authority."  "  No  objects,"  he  declares,  "  within  the 
circle  of  political  economy  so  richly  repay  the  expense  bestowed  upon  them ; 
there  are  none  the  utility  of  which  is  more  universally  ascertained  and  acknowl- 
edged; none  that  more  do  honor  to  the  Government  whose  wise  and  enlarged 
patriotism  duly  appreciates  them.  While  the  States  individually,  with  a  laud- 
able enterprise  and  emulation,  avail  themselves  of  their  local  advantages  by 
new  roads,  by  navigable  canals,  and  by  improving  the  streams  susceptible  of 
navigation,  the  General  Government  is  the  more  urged  to  similar  undertakings, 
requiring  a  national  jurisdiction  and  national  means,  by  the  prospect  of  thus 
systematically  completing  so  excellent  a  work.  And  it  is  a  happy  reflection 
that  any  defect  of  constitutional  authority  which  may  be  encountered  can  be 
supplied  in  a  mode  which  the  Constitution  itself  has  providently  pointed  out. 

Mr.  Monroe  in  his  first  inaugural  advocates  with  great  earnestness 
the  completion  by  national  authority  of  the  system  of  communication 
for  which  nature,  in  the  great  rivers,  i)ays,  and  lakes,  had.  done  so  much. 
He  expresses  no  doubt  of  the  constitutional  authority,  unless  it  be  con- 
veyed by  the  phrase  "proceeding  always  with  a  constitutional  sanc- 
tion." He  returns  to  the  subject  in  his  last  annual  message.  But  in 
his  veto  of  the  Cumberland  road  bill,  on  the  4th  of  May,  1822,  he  an- 
nounced his  reluctant  conclusion  that  the  existing  powers  of  Congress 
are  not  sufficient,  and  recommends  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution 
to  confer  the  needed  power. 

Mr.  Jefferson  held  like  opinions.  He  thought  the  defect  might  be 
cured  by  si)ecial  legislation  by  each  State  confirming  the  acts  of  Con- 
gress for  works  within  its  limits,  and  prepared  a  form  for  such  enact- 
ment. In  his  last  annual  message  he  indicates  a  probable  surplus  reve- 
nue of  more  than  $8,000,000,  which  he  proposes  shall,  instead  of  being 
reduced — 

Be  appropriated  to  the  improvements  of  roads,  canals,  rivers,  education,  and 
other  great  foundations  of  prosperity  and  union,  under  the  powers  which  Con- 
gress may  already  possess,  or  such  amendment  of  the  Constitution  as  may  be 
approved  by  the  States. 


11 


When  Mr.  Gallatin's  report  was  made  there  was  no  State  in  the 
Union  west  of  the  Mississippi.  There  were  but  two  States.  Tennessee 
and  Kentucky,  which  touched  that  river  on  the  east.  Florida  was  in 
the  possession  of  Spain.  The  entire  population  of  the  United  States  at 
the  last  preceding  census  was  but  fifty-three  hundred  thousand,  and  at 
the  next  following  but  seventy-two  hundred  thousand.  Manufacture 
was  in  its  infancy.  The  production  of  cotton  was  less  than  one-seven- 
tieth its  present  amount.  That  of  grain,  compared  with  its  present 
product  of  twelve  hundred  and  fifty  million  in  value,  of  iron  with  its 
present  product  of  five  thousand  five  hundred  millions  of  pounds,  of  coal 
with  its  present  product  of  fifty-nine  millions  of  tons,  would  probably 
bear  even  smaller  proportions.  As  has  been  already  said.  Mr.  Gallatin 
expected  a  revenue  of  fourteen  millions  of  dollars,  atfording  a  surplus 
of  five  and  a  half  millions,  a  trifling  sum  w  hen  compared  with  our 
present  receipts  of  $400,000,000. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  expenditure  thus  proposed  by  these 
early  statesmen  was  for  internal  improvement  alone — for  rivers,  canals, 
and  roads — an  expenditure  for  the  service  only  of  domestic  commerce, 
Including  nothing  for  light-houses  or  harbors  on  the  coast.  John  Quincy 
Adams  would  have  had  a  nation  of  six  or  seven  million  people  give 
five  million  annually  from  its  revenue  of  fourteen  million.  Jefferson 
would  have  it  give  annually  eight  million  from  its  revenue  of  eighteen 
million  to  the  territory  east  of  the  ^Mississippi  for  purposes  for  which 
the  much-abused  bill  of  1882  expended  exclusive  of  the  Mississippi 
Eiver  but  five  and  a  half  million  from  our  income  of  lour  hundred 
million  for  the  entire  continent. 

I  suppose  we  may  fairly  claim  that  any  doctrine  upon  which,  from 
1806  to  1848,  when  Adams  died,  Daniel  Webster  and  John  Quincy 
Adams  were  agreed  was  a  ^lassachusetts  doctrine. 

To  exhibit  Mr.  Webster's  views  on  the  iK)licy  of  liberal  expenditure 
for  internal  communications  by  the  General  Government  would  be  al- 
most to  set  forth  his  whole  theorv^  as  a  constitutional  statesman.  He 
■was  born  in  the  last  year  of  the  Revolutionary  war.  His  public  life 
began  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  of  1812,  when  the  infant  Republic, 
with  its  population  scarcely  exceeding  7,000,000,  was  an  object  of  un- 
disguised contempt  to  every  leading  power  on  earth.  Yet  the  present 
greatness  of  the  country  is  not  seen  by  our  own  vision  to-day  more 
clearly  than  it  appeared  then  to  that  of  Daniel  Webster.  With  the  eye  of 
a  prophet  and  the  comprehension  of  a  statesman  he  saw  from  the  begin- 
ning the  vast  and  beneficent  power  of  these  unused  national  forces.  He 
never  separated  from  the  blessings  of  constitutional  liberty  itself  the 
benefits  to  be  derived  from  commerce  as  developed  by  these  great  national 
works  of  internal  improvement.  He  never  omits  to  urge  this  theme 
when  the  occasion  makes  it  proper. 

In  his  Plymouth  Rock  address  he  dwells  on  this  as  following  the 
establishment  of  national  government. 

Again,  in  his  speech  before  the  ^Massachusetts  election,  in  1825,  he 
calls  on  his  fellow-<;itizens,  '  *  speaking, "  as  he  says,  ' '  perhaps  at  some 
hazard  of  misinterpretations,  by  united  counsels  and  united  efforts  to 
aid  the  West  in  clearing  the  navigation  of  its  mighty  streams,  and  the 
South  to  push  the  production  and  augment  the  prices  of  its  great 
staples." 

At  the  public  dinner  given  him  in  Faneuil  Hall,  in  1828,  at  the  out- 
set of  his  service  in  the  Senate,  he  again  calls  the  attention  of  his  con- 
stituents to  this  subject  as  one  of  great  and  growing  importance.  He 


12 


showed  them  that  with  the  close  of  the  war  iii  Europe  the  great  har- 
vest which  they  had  reaped  as  ueutrals  was  over,  other  nations  were 
now  to  raise  their  own  bread,  and  as  far  as  possible  transport  their  own 
commodities.  It  was  fit  to  consider  how  far  home  productions  could 
properly  be  made  to  furnish  activity  to  home  supply  and  of  the  highest 
importance  to  inquire  what  means  existed  of  establishing  free  and  cheap 
intercourse  between  distant  ports,  thereby  bringing  the  raw  material 
abounding  in  one  under  the  action  of  the  productive  labor  which  was 
found  in  another.  He  points  out  that  from  the  very  first  asseml)lingof 
Congress  the  j)ower  to  regulate  commerce  has  been  construed  to  com- 
prehend such  measures  as  were  necessary  for  its  support,  its  improve- 
ment, its  advancement,  and  justified  the  expenditure  of  money  for  the 
construction  of  piers,  beacons,  and  light-houses  and  the  clearing  out  of 
harbors.  It  was  not  eas}^  to  see  why  like  expenditures  might  not  be  j  us- 
tified  when  made  on  internal  objects. 

The  vast  regions  of  the  West  are  penetrated  by  rivers  to  which  those  of  Eu- 
rope are  but  as  rills  and  brooks.  The  navigation  of  those  noble  streams,  washing 
AS  they  do  the  margins  of  one-third  of  the  States  of  the  Union,  is  obstructed  by 
obstacles  capable  of  being  removed,  and  yet  not  likely  to  be  removed  but  by  the 
power  of  the  Genei-al  Government,  Was  this  a  justifial)le  object  of  expenditure 
from  the  National  Government?    Without  hesitation  I  have  thought  it  was. 

He  goes  on  to  urge  that  these  objects  are  much  less  local  than  they 
seem: 

If  the  mouths  of  the  Southern  rivers  be  deepened  and  improved,  the  neigh- 
boring cities  are  benefited,  but  so  also  are  the  ships  which  %'isit  them  ;  and  if  the 
Mississippi  and  Ohio  be  rendered  more  safe  for  navigation,  the  great  markets 
of  consumption  along  their  shores  are  the  more  readily  and  cheaply  approached 
by  the  products  of  the  factories  and  fisheries  of  New  England. 

He  renews  the  subject  at  New  York,  and  again  at  Worcester,  and 
again  at  Pittsburgh,  and  again  at  Alliany,  and  again  at  Bangor,  and 
again  at  Madison,  Ind.  He  meets  the  objection  that  the  advantages 
received  from  this  policy  are  local.  ' '  In  such  cases  it  always  appeared 
to  me  that  the  point  to  be  examined  was,  whether  the  2)rinciple  was 
general.  If  the  principle  were  general,  although  the  ai)plicatiou  might 
be  partial,  I  cheerfully  and  zealously  gave  it  my  support."  Mr.  Web- 
ster's speech  at  the  Philadelphia  hanquet  December  2,  1845,  in  replj^  to 
President  Polk's  message  vetoing  the  river  and  harbor  bill  of  that  year, 
hardly  needs  the  change  of  a  sentence  to  adajDt  it  to  the  question  as  it 
has  come  up  at  the  present  day. 

President  Polk  had  vetoed  a  bill  which  appropriated  §1,300,000  for 
river  and  harbor  improvement.  Of  this  but  §280, 000  was  for  works  on 
the  Atlantic,  leaving  more  than  a  million  for  lake  and  river.  Consid- 
ering that  we  were  then  at  war,  considering  the  vast  increase  in  the 
population,  the  vast  accession  of  territory,  the  gigantic  development  of 
our  internal  commerce  which  has  taken  place  in  the  last  forty  years, 
that  sum  was  a  greater  sum  in  proportion  to  the  need  or  the  ability  of 
the  country  than  the  expenditure  for  like  objects  proposed  by  any  re- 
cent bill.  The  arguments  that  Mr.  Webster  then  combated  and  over- 
threw were  the  same  which  in  infinitely  feebler  forms  have  been  repro- 
duced at  the  present  day.  The  charge  that  the  objects  provided  for 
were  local,  the  imputation  upon  members  of  Congress  as  an  ofiense  that 
they  desired  to  divide  the  benefits  of  this  bill  among  different  sections 
of  the  country  with  some  regard  to  equality,  even  the  silly  jeers  at 
uncouth  and  unfamiliar  names  of  rivers  and  creeks,  were  rife  then  as 
now.  Little  Sodus  Bay  and  Great  Sodus  Bay  and  Conneaut  Creek  and 
Ocracoke  Inlet  wereas  unfamiliar  to  the  jjeople  in  general  then  as  Che- 


13 


halis  aud  Coliansey  are  to-day.  This  speech  at  the  Philadelphia  din- 
ner is  one  of  the  very  greatest  of  INIr.  Webster's  loolitical  speeches.  It 
never  should  be  and  never  will  be  forgotten.  Its  weighty  and  compact 
argument  can  not  with  justice  be  abridged. 

I  have  elsewhere  quoted  the  magnificent  passage  in  the  reply  to 
Hayne,  where  Mr.  Webster  demands  for  himself  and  for  New  England 
the  praise  of  having  uniformly  supported  the  most  liberal  grants  from 
the  public  Treasury  for  the  improvement  of  Western  rivers.  He  there 
claims,  as  he  had  claimed  in  the  first  speech  on  Foot's  resolution,  that 
everything  of  this  kind  that  had  been  accomplished  had  depended  on 
New  England  lor  its  success.  It  is  true  of  that  great  speech  as  it  is 
true  of  Mr.  AVebster's  entire  public  efforts  taken  as  a  whole  from  the 
beginning  of  his  career  that  with  the  exception  of  his  vindication  of 
the  supreme  authority  of  the  Union,  there  is  no  single  public  object 
upon  which  he  lays  so  much  stress  or  for  which  he  manifests  such  zeal 
as  this  of  internal  improvement.  He  declares  that  he  had  proposed  to 
himself  this  object  of  effort  at  the  outset  of  his  Congressional  service. 
He  re-enforces  his  argument  from  the  Constitution  by  the  consideration 
that  the  Government  is  a  great  untaxed  landed  x)roprietor.  It  was  with 
Webster's  authority  that  Sumner  silenced  the  storm  of  opposition  which 
his  first  great  speech  in  Congress  encountered  for  which  he  was  threat- 
ened with  legislative  censure  for  advocating  the  support  of  internal  im- 
provements in  the  West  by  liberal  grants  of  public  land. 

Mr.  Webster  dealt  with  this  subject  many  times  in  speeches  not  found 
in  his  collected  works.  His  speech  on  the  purchase  of  stock  in  the 
Louisville  Canal  is  published  in  the  volumes  compiled  by  Mr.  Everett 
under  his  direction.  That  is  one  of  the  most  W^ebsterian  of  Webster's 
speeches.  There  is  not  a  sentence  of  it  that  does  not  seem  to  bring  its 
great  author  before  our  eyes  : 

There  are  no  Alleghanies  in  my  politics.  I  have  taken  a  part  in  this  great 
struggle  for  internal  improvement  from  the  beginning  and  I  shall  hold  out  to  the 
end.  Whoever  may  follow,  or  whoever  may  fly,  I  shall  go  straight  forward  for 
all  those  constitutional  powers,  and  for  all  that  liberal  policy  which  I  have 
hitherto  supported.  These  Western  gentlemen  who  are  so  much  interested  in 
this  measure  have  stood  by  us  and  now  I  tell  them  that  I  shall  stand  by  them. 
I  shall  be  found  where  they  look  for  me.  I  have  asked  their  votes  once  and 
again  for  objects  important  to  the  Atlantic  States.  They  have  liberally  given 
those  votes.  And  now  having  an  object  interesting  to  them  and  their  constitu- 
ents, a  first  object  and  a  great  object,  they  have  a  right  to  find  me  at  their  side, 
acting  with  them,  acting  according  to  my  own  principles  and  proving  my  own 
consistency.  And  so  they  shall  find  me.  And  so  they  do  find  me.  On  ttiis  oc- 
casion I  am  with  them  ;  I  am  one  of  them.  I  am  as  Western  a  man  on  this  bill 
as  he  among  them  who  is  most  Western.  This  chair  must  change  its  occupant, 
another  voice  will  address  the  Senate  from  this  seat,  before  an  object  of  this  nat- 
ure, so  important,  so  constitutional,  so  expedient,  so  highly  desirable  to  a  great 
portion  of  the  country,  and  so  useful  to  the  whole,  shall  fail  here  for  the  want, 
either  of  a  decisive  vote  in  its  support,  or  of  an  earnest  recommendation  of  it 
to  the  support  of  others. 

Adams  and  Gallatin  and  Webster  were  not  accu.stomed  to  expend 
their  strength  on  what  was  temporary  or  transitory.  Constitutional 
principles  have  not  changed  since  their  day.  The  policy  which  each  of 
them  in  turn  urged  upon  his  countrymen,  and  reckoned  as  among  his  most 
important  titles  to  their  favor,  was  not  for  a  single  year  or  a  single  gen- 
eration. It  was  never  more  expedient  than  to-day.  I  wish  to  urge  upon 
Congress  the  wisdom  of  expending  uponthe  internal  water  ways  of  the 
country  a  sum  at  least  equal  to  that  which  Adams  and  Gallatin  pro- 
posed. I  think  no  river  and  harbor  bill  should  contain  a  smaller  appro- 
priation for  the  rivers  and  lakes  of  our  present  dominion,  extending  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  than  that  which  Gallatin  and  Adams  pro- 


14 


posed  for  a  people  of  seven  millions,  whose  revenue  w^as  but  fourteen 
millions,  whose  territory  was  not  inhabited  half-way  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Mississippi,  who  had  but  two  States  touching  that  river,  who 
navigated  but  two  of  the  five  great  lakes,  to  whom  steam  as  a  motive 
power  was  scarcely  known. 

The  sum  which  the  river  and  harbor  bill  of  1882,  the  object  of  so  much 
senseless  and  unreasoning  clamor,  appropriated  for  our  entire  river  im- 
provements, exclusive  of  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri,  slightly  exceeded 
$5,000,000,  I  propose  to  state  the  reasons  why  this  expenditure  should 
be  maintained  and  made  permanent.  It  costs  the  American  people  10 
cents  apiece.  It  is  but  a  grain  of  mustard-seed  compared  with  the  vast 
advantage  to  our  foreign  commerce  and  the  advantage,  much  more  vast, 
to  our  domestic  commerce.  Judiciously  applied  it  will  increase  the 
value  of  every  grain-field  in  the  West  and  every  cotton-field  in  the 
South.  Every  householder  in  New  England  will  feel  the  diminution 
it  will  cause  in  the  price  of  his  food — will  save  more  than  his  share  of 
the  cost  in  the  price  of  his  meat  and  his  flour. 

If  there  be  anything  to  which  the  Repul)licans  of  the  country  and  of 
my  own  State  are  pledged  it  is  this.  They  have  repeatedly  and  em- 
phatically reiterated  their  allegiance  to  a  liberal  policy  of  internal  im- 
provement from  their  earliest  organization. 

Since  Grallatin  made  his  famous  report  and  since  Adams  left  the 
Senate  more  than  120,000  miles  of  railroads  have  been  erected  for  the 
service  of  American  commerce.  To  aid  them  large  public  grants  of 
land  and  credit  have  been  made.  These  have  removed  the  necessity 
for  many  of  the  works  contemplated  by  our  early  statesmen.  But  the 
reasons  for  liberal  appropriation  for  internal  water  communication  have 
been  strengthened  and  not  weakened.  Another  necessity,  new  and 
more  imperious,  has  been  created.  Great  as  has  been  the  increase  of 
the  means  of  transportation,  the  demand  for  that  increase  has  grown  in 
far  greater  proportion.  To  maintain  our  rivalry  with  foreign  nations 
abroad,  to  secure  the  independence  of  our  own  manufactures,  to  develop 
a  productive  capacity  undreamed  of  by  our  predecessors,  to  keep  up  the 
rate  of  wages  on  which  republicanism  itself  is  dependent,  all  require 
the  reduction  to  the  lowest  possible  point  of  the  cost  of  transportation. 
But  to  hold  in  check  the  great  railroad  power  itself,  to  prevent  it  from 
fixing  both  rates  of  carriage  and  prices  of  production  from  becoming 
independent  of  competition  and  of  the  ordinary  laws  of  trade,  we  must 
improve  and  develop  to  the  fullest  extent  our  great  natural  water  ways. 

The  census,  the  reports  of  the  boards  of  trade  of  our  chief  cities,  of 
the  great  railroads  and  canals,  and  especially  Mr.  Windom's  masterly 
state  paper  on  transportation  routes  to  the  seaboard,  and  the  admira- 
ble reports  on  internal  commerce  by  Mr,  Nimmo  are  all  full  of  in- 
struction. There  are  some  conclusions  upon  which  all  the  leading  au- 
thorities are  agreed  from  which  we  may  derive  much  light. 

First,  all  the  authorities  and  the  experience  of  this  country  and  Eu- 
rope unite  in  teaching  us  that  competition  or  the  law  of  supply  and 
demand  do  not  operate  to  protect  the  public  against  excessive  freight 
charges  by  railroads  as  in  the  case  of  free  highways.  The  whole  rail- 
road system  of  a  country  becomes,  sooner  or  later,  a  unit  for  the  pur- 
-pose  of  fixing  the  price  of  transport  of  merchandise.  Mr.  Nimmo  in 
his  report  on  internal  commerce  for  July,  1881,  page  17,  states  the 
conclusion  as  follows: 

Competition  between  common  carriers  on  free  highways  and  the  law  of  sup- 
ply and  demand  have  from  time  immemorial  been  regarded  as  the  natural  and 


15 


adequate  regulative  principles  with  respect  to  freij^ht  charges.  An  agreement 
as  to  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  rates  among  any  number  of  carriers 
on  a  free  highway  of  commerce  does  not  of  course  preclude  the  possibility  of 
competition  upon  such  highway;  but  the  case  is  different  with  respect  to  the 
establishment  and  maintenance  of  competing  railroads.  In  the  latter  case  the 
agreements  are  not  made  by  individual  carriers,  but  by  the  owners  of  the  high- 
ways of  commerce  themselves  together  with  all  their  organized  agencies  for 
transportation. 

This  is  established  by  most  abundant  proof.  Mr.  Randolph,  Secretary 
of  the  Chicago  Board  of  Trade  (Nimmo's  report,  1880,  appendix,  pages 
3-5)  gives  an  instructive  history  of  the  establishment  of  rates  by  the 
joint  executive  committee  of  the  East  and  West  lines  of  railroad  in  1879. 

Their  first  rate,  evStablished  June  23, 1879,  was  on  the  basis  of  20  cents 
per  one  hundred  pounds  from  Chicago  to  New  York.  This  was  a  large 
advance  on  previous  summer  rates,  wliich  rates  had  proved  amply  re- 
munerative and  had  enabled  the  roads  to  pay  good  dividends  and  im- 
prove their  roads  and  equipment.  When  the  arrangement  was  found 
to  operate  in  forty  days,  on  August  4  the  rate  was  advanced  25  per  cent. 
By  August  25  it  was  advanced  50  per  cent.,  by  October  13,  75  per  cent. ; 
and  by  November  10,  100  per  cent. ,  or  to  40  cents  per  100  pounds.  This 
was  without  any  essential  modification  of  local  rates.  This  was  main- 
tained till  the  opening  of  lake  navigation  in  the  spring  of  1880,  when 
it  was  reduced  to  35  cents,  and  April  14, 1880,  to  30  cents.  Thirty  cents 
per  100  pounds  is  an  average  of  6}  mills  per  ton  per  mile.  The  aver- 
age cost  of  moving  all  freight,  local  and  through,  of  all  classes,  grain 
being  but  fourth  class,  was,  in  1879,  4.86  mills  per  ton  per  mile  and  for 
the  following  year  even  less. 

Mr.  Windom's  committee  establish  this  conclusion  beyond  contro- 
versy by  their  history  of  railroad  transportation  in  Great  Britain,  France, 
Belgium,  Prussia,  and  in  this  country.  (Windom's  report,  pages  111- 
118.) 

Second.  All  the  authorities  are  in  substance  agreed  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  control  the  railroads  in  the  matter  of  rates  1)y  the  direct  exercise 
of  the  authority  of  Government.  Mr.  Windom  declares,  as  the  result 
of  the  attempts  to  prevent  combinations  and  consolidations  in  England, 
that  for  more  than  a  third  of  a  century  the  failure  has  been  complete. 
(Report,  page  126. )  The  railroad  couunissioners  of  Massachusetts  de- 
clare "that  the  English  legislation  has  neither  accomplished  anything 
which  it  sought  to  bring  about  nor  prevented  anything  it  sought  to 
hinder. ' ' 

Third.  Competition,  which  is  to  secure  and  maintain  cheap  transpor- 
tation, must  embrace  two  essential  conditions:  First,  it  must  be  con- 
trolled by  a  power  with  which  combination  will  be  impossible;  second, 
it  must  operate  tlirough  cheaper  and  more  ample  channels  of  commerce 
than  are  now  provided.    (Windom,  page  242.) 

Two  methods  of  accomplishing  this  desired  result  have  been  sug- 
gested. One  is  the  construction  and  operation  by  the  Government  of 
one  or  more  railroad  lines  which  will  regulate  all  others.  The  other 
is  the  improvement  of  our  great  natural  channels  of  water  communica- 
tion, their  connection  by  canals  and  short  railway  portages  where  needed, 
with  such  suitable  and  reasonable  expenditure  upon  harl)ors,  rivers, 
and  creeks  as  shall  be  necessary  to  render  them  accessible. 

The.  first  of  these  methods  was  once  recommended  to  the  people  of 
Massachusetts,  who  were  advised  to  buy  and  operate  the  Fitchburg 
Railroad.  The  Windom  committee  speak  respectfully  of  the  plan  of 
constructing  by  the  United  States  one  or  more  double-track  freight 


1() 

railroads  to  be  controlled  by  the  Goveruraeut  and  operated  at  a  low 
speed.  They  do  not  recommend  this  plan.  But  they  say  that  such 
roads — 

"Would  be  able  to  carry  at  much  less  cost  than  can  be  done  under  the  present 
system  of  operating  fast  and  slow  ti-ains  on  the  same  road;  and,  being  incapable 
of  entering  into  combinations,  would  no  doubt  serve  as  a  very  valuable  regu- 
lator of  all  existing  railroads  within  their  influence. 

But  the  practical  objections  to  this  scheme  are  of  such  a  nature  that  I 
think  it  highly  improbable  that  the  American  people  will  ever  be  brought 
to  approve  it.  It  Avill  require  a  large  original  outlay.  It  demands  a 
very  large  force  of  employes  to  be  controlled  by  each  successive  admin- 
istration. This  force  will  be,  or  will  at  least  be  believed  to  be,  a  great 
political  instrumentality.  It  makes  the  Government  a  rival  and  com- 
petitor of  large  business  associations.  Government  railroads  not  being 
managed  with  a  view  to  profit,  there  will  be  no  stimulant  in  the  desire 
of  gain  to  develop  the  resources  of  the  country  by  the  construction  of 
branch  lines  and  feeders.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  Government 
railroad  will  always  he  able  to  defend  itself  against  its  powerful  rivals 
who  themselves,  so  far  as  they  can  wield  political  power,  can  get  a 
share  in  its  management.  The  final  executive  control  of  a  government 
railroad  is  by  no  means  certain  to  be  in  the  hands  that  are  fitted  for  its 
management.  The  location  and  the  management  of  a  great  railroad 
must  necessarily  have  great  but  varying  and  unequal  effect  on  the  pros- 
perity of  different  communities.  This  would  cause  constant  jealousies 
and  complaints.  It  would  not  long  be  tolerated  that  the  resources  of 
the  Government,  to  which  all  equally  contribute,  should  be  expended 
unequally.  This  complaint  could  never  be  removed  until  the  Govern- 
ment undertook  to  supply  transportation  for  every  part  of  the  country. 

The  second  of  these  methods  is  recommended  by  the  concurrent  au- 
thority of  the  ablest  men,  whether  statesmen  or  experts,  who  have  in- 
vestigated the  subject,  aod  by  the  marvelous  results  it  has  already  ac- 
complished. 

Government,  in  the  promotion  of  commerce  with  foreign  nations  or 
among  the  States  by  providing  safe  and  convenient  routes  of  transport, 
has  two  classes  of  objects  which  demand  its  attention.  First,  are  the 
great  arteries  of  traffic  such  as  the  Mississippi  Eiver,  the  lakes,  the  great 
routes  which  connect  centers  of  trade  like  Chicago,  Cincinnati,  Saint 
Louis,  Milwaukee,  Louisville,  with  Xew  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia, 
Baltimore,  New  Orleans.  The  Atlantic  Ocean  also,  the  great  highway 
of  nations,  is  a  great  carrier  also  for  local  commerce,  and  its  competition 
is  felt  in  lowering  freights  on  many  of  our  important  railroads. 

Second,  are  special  but  important  localities  which  need  the  national 
resources  to  make  them  a  part  of  the  great  system.  Such  are  in  my 
own  State,  Lynn,  Taunton,  the  towns  and  cities  on  Charles  Kiver.  The 
principle  on  which  these  are  to  be  aided  should  be  carefully  limited. 
But  the  commerce  of  each  of  them  with  other  States  and  with  other 
countries  is  a  national  concern.  It  can  be  developed  only  b}^  the  na- 
tional authority.  As  I  shall  hereafter  show  the  aggregate  of  such  ex- 
penditure will  produce  a  thousand-fold  return  in  national  wealth  and 
benefit. 

The  river  or  lake  or  ocean  is  free  to  all  mankind.  There  can  be  no 
monopoly  in  its  use.  No  combination  can  control  it  or  secure  any  ad- 
vantage in  its  benefits.  When  it  is  once  prepared  for  the  service  of  com- 
merce it  is  permanent  and  does  not  perish  with  the  using.  Even  in  its 
competition  with  the  railroad  it  takes  but  a  small  portion  of  the  entire 


17 


freight ;  it  is  the  perpetual,  sure,  and  inevitable  regulator  of  rates.  There 
is  no  practical  limit  to  the  carrying  capacity  of  national  navigable  waters, 
while  the  railroad  is  limited  by  the  frequency  with  which  trains  can  be 
run  and  by  the  terminal  lacilities.  Another  fact  is  well  settled  by 
modern  experience: 

The  cost  of  water  transportation  diminishes  in  proportion  as  the  size  of  ves- 
sels increases.  The  vahie  of  any  water  route  is  measured  by  the  capacity  and 
etficiency  of  its  most  defective  part.  If  from  lack  of  proper  improvements  a 
single  harbor  on  any  •;iven  line  can  atford  facilities  for  only  the  smaller  class  of 
vessels  the  value  of  the  entire  line  is  graded  down  to  correspond  with  the  inade- 
quate harbor. — Secretary  Wiiidom's  letter  to  lake  improvement  conveidion  at  Saint 
Paid,  December,  1878. 

Let  us  see  for  a  moment  how  the  public  expenditure  in  the  improve- 
ment of  our  great  water  ways  and  tlieir  increased  competition  with  the 
railroads  has  already  diminished  the  cost  of  transportation  in  the  single 
article  of  wheat.  This  diminution  of  the  cost  of  transportation  dimin- 
ishes the  price  to  the  consumer,  while  it  increases  it  to  the  producer. 
The  diminution  of  freights  causes  the  increase  of  our  supply  of  bread- 
stulfs  to  Europe.  That  not  only  enal)les  our  farmers  to  dispose  of  a 
larger  quantity  of  their  product  abroad,  but  diminishes  the  price  there. 
The  price  abroad  determines  the  price  here.  So  that  by  diminishing 
freight  we  diminish  the  cost  of  the  food  of  the  American  workman  of  the 
Eastern  States,  while  the  American  farmer  is  enabled  to  supply  Europe. 
Formerly  the  farm  was  an  isolated  and  independent  homestead.  The 
farmer  raised  the  larger  part  Of  what  he  consumed,  and  consumed 
nearly  everything  he  raised.  To-day  the  American  farmer  is  a  mer- 
chant, whose  competitor  is  on  the  Ganges  or  the  Bosporus. 

Among  the  chief  objects  of  internal  improvements  in  the  bill  which 
Mr.  AVebster  defended  against  the  veto  of  President  Polk  was  the  Mis- 
sissippi River,  whose  perilous  navigation  the  great  orator  so  impress- 
ively descril)es.  The  wise  liberality  of  the  National  Government  has 
already  much  improved  the  channel  of  this  stream  from  Saint  Louis  to 
Xew  Orleans,  and  has  enabled  the  river  itself,  compelled  by  the  genius 
of  a  great  engineer,  to  cut  a  passage  through  the  obstruction  at  its  mouth. 

Steamers  of  6,000  tons,  drawing  thirty  feet  of  water,  now  pass  freely 
in  and  out  of  Xew  Orleans,  where  but  a  few  years  ago  vessels  of  twenty 
feet  draught  were  unable  to  pass,  except  at  uncertain  intervals  and  after 
long  detentions.  I  feel  no  little  personal  gratification  that  I  have 
been  able  to  contribute  something  to  this  result.  From  a  time  before 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  the  charge  has  been  made  against  the 
people  of  the  Northeast  that  they  desired  to  compel  all  the  commerce 
of  the  Northwest  to  seek  an  eastern  outlet,  and  were  hostile  to  the  ac- 
quisition of  the  right  to  navigate  the  Mississippi,  and  to  the  improve- 
ment of  that  navigation  after  the  river  itself  became  ours.  Washing- 
ton, in  his  Farewell  Address,  assured  the  people  of  the  West  how  un- 
founded was  this  suspicion.  But  it  has  been  kept  alive  down  to  our 
own  day.  It  plaj" ed  its  evil  part  in  hurling  John  Quincy  Adams  from 
power.  I  hope  the  jetties  Avhich  opened  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
constructed  by  the  aid  of  New  England  votes,  may  forever  perform 
their  beneficent  office. 

The  jetties  were  completed  in  1879.  In  that  year  the  wheat  and 
wheat  iiour  and  corn  and  corn-meal  shipped  to  foreign  coimtries  from 
New  Orleans  was  5,920,487  bushels  as  against  5,170,406  bushels  in 
1856.  In  1882  it  had  gone  up  to  16,859,343  bushels.  This  consisted 
entirely  of  grain  received  at  New  Orleans  from  Saint  Louis,  and  is  de- 
Ho  2 


18 


clared  ))y  Mr.  Nimmo  iu  his  report  for  1882  to  be  largely  the  result  of 
the  jetties.  Vessels  drawing  thirty  feet  aud  carrying  G,000  toiLs  now 
pass  in  and  out  of  New  Orleans  as  freely  and  punctually  as  they  can 
traverse  the  open  Gulf. 

The  vice-president  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  llailroad,  Mr.  King, 
in  his  report  to  the  joint  executive  committee  of  the  Ea^st  and  West 
trunk  lines  dated  April  27,  1881,  states  the  total  charges  for  transport- 
ing grain  from  Saint  Louis  to  Liverpool,  via  New  Orleans,  to  be  28 
cents  per  bushel,  while  at  the  sjime  time  the  charge  via  New  York  was 
36]-  cents  per  bushel,  The.se  rates  include  all  charges.  At  the  time 
INIr.  King  refers  to  the  river  rate  from  Saint  Louis  to  New  Orleans  was 
82  cents  per  bushel.  Here,  then,  is  a  saving  o[  8\  cents  per  bushel 
on  the  transportation  of  grain  fi'om  Saint  Louis  to  Liverpool  caused 
by  the  improvement  in  the  Missi-ssippi  navigation.  But  the  instrumen- 
talities for  transporting  grain  by  the  IMissi.ssippi  were  not  completely 
organized  at  the  date  of  these  statistics.  Jtlr.  Ss'immo  says  that  well- 
informed  pei'sons  believe  that  grain  can  thus  be  transported  at  a  profit 
from  Saint  LouLs  to  New  Orleans  at  4  cents  a  bushel.  This  would 
make  a  total  diminution  of  12|  cents  j)er  bushel.  But,  keeping  within 
the  possibility  of  doubt,  let  us  ascribe  a  saving  of  10  cents  per  bushel 
only  to  this  one  improvement  in  water  communication  and  see  its  im- 
portant conse<:j[uences. 

"We  exported  in  1881  150,565  467  bushels  of  wheat  alone.  An  an- 
nual saving  of  10  cents  per  bushel  is  a  saving  of  §15,000,000  annually 
of  export  tax  on  the  one  article  of  wheat. 

We  exported  in  1872,  the  year  when  the  transportation  of  grain  to 
the  Atlantic  from  points  as  far  west  as  Chicago  fairly  began — 


1872. 

1880. 

Wheat  

Wheat  flour  

26, 423, 080 
2,514,5:35 
34,491,650 

153,252,795 
6,011,419 
98, 169.  877 

Indian  corn   

 bushels... 

The  total  export  of  wheat  and  corn  increased  from  63,429,165  bush- 
els in  1872  to  279,707,808  bushels  in  1880.  On  this  is  an  annual  sav- 
ing of  $27,000,000. 

This  increase  in  exportation — 

Says  Mr.  Nimmo — 

of  the  cereal  products  of  the  country  constitutes  one  of  the  most  striking:  devel- 
opments of  commerce  ever  recorded. 

He  further  says: 

The  reduction  which  has  taken  place  during  the  past  four  years  in  the  cost  of 
transportation  between  the  "West  and  the  seaboard  has  had  a  marked  ett'ect  in  re- 
ducing the  export  price  of  corn  and  of  certain  other  agricultural  products  of  the 
West,  and  has  been  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the  rapid  increase  in  the  ex- 
portation of  the  products  of  agriculture  to  foreign  countries. 

In  1872  there  was  imported  from  the  United  States  into  Great  Brit- 
ain and  Ireland  of  wheat  and  wheat  flour  17,984,118  bushels,  being 
20.2  per  cent,  of  theii"  whole  importation.  In  1880  there  was  imported 
from  the  United  States,  of  the  same,  83,487,243  bushels,  being  65.4  per 
cent  of  the  whole  importation.  The  whole  importation  increased  fi-om 
58,877,406  bushels  in  1872  to  127,746,325  bushels  in  1880,  So  that 
Great  Britain  got  from  abroad  40,000,000  bushels  more  in  '80  than  in 


19 


'72,  and  the  United  States  supplied  65.4  per  cent,  of  the  large  impor- 
tation against  20.2  per  cent,  of  the  smaller.  We  are  therefore  not  only 
driving  Russia  and  other  food-producing  countries  from  the  British 
market,  but  dri\'ing  the  British  farmer  from  his  own.  Russia,  which 
in  1872  imported  into  the  United  Kingdom  33,486,091  bushels  of  wheat, 
in  1879  imported  but  15,162,639,  and  in  1880,  5,376,202. 

This  large  increase  in  the  total  quantity  of  wheat  imported  into  the  United 
Kingdom — 

Says  Mr.  Nimmo — 

is  due  not  so  much  to  the  Increase  of  population  in  that  country  as  to  the  de- 
creased production  of  wheat  in  England.  Cheaper  transportation  from  points 
of  production  has  enabled  Americiin  producers  to  compete  with  English  pro- 
ducers more  successfully  than  formerly. 

Mr.  Windom  estimates  the  saving  which  will  be  made  on  the  corn 
and  wheat  crops  of  Iowa  and  Minnesota  alone  at  ^36,000. 000.  (Report, 
pages  212,  214,  215.) 

Wheat  is  by  no  means  the  only  article  which  exhibits  these  marvel- 
ous results  of  the  reduction  of  the  export  tax.  The  consumption  of 
corn  increased  in  Great  Britain  fi-om  16.000,000  bushels  in  1860  to  over 
74,000,000  in  1879,  the  price  diminishing  from  97  cents  in  1860  to  66 
in  1879. 
The  reduction- 
Says  Mr.  Ximmo — 

in  the  cost  of  transportation  in  the  United  States  from  the  "Western  and  North- 
western States  to  the  seaboard  during  the  last  six  years  has  tended  greatly  to  in- 
crease the  exportation  ot  both  wheat  and  corn  'to  Europe,  and  especially  to 
the  United  Kingdom. 

The  cost  of  transporting  wheat  from  Chicago  to  New  York  city  by  lake  and 
canal  fell  from  an  average  of  24.25  cents  per  bushel,  not  including  canal  tolls,  of 
3.1  cents  per  bushel  in  1S72  to  an  average  of  12.22  cents  per  bushel,  including 
canal  tolls,  of  1.03  cents  per  bushel  in  1880. 

New  York  within  the  past  twelve  months  has  made  to  the  commerce 
of  the  country  the  magnificent  contribution  of  her  canal  property  of  a 
hundred  millions  in  value,  that  these  canal  tolls  may  be  saved. 

Such,  Mr.  President,  are  the  marvelous  results  of  the  liberal  policy 
commended  to  us  by  the  great  statesmen  of  the  last  generation,  as  shown 
in  the  export  of  the  article  of  breadstufts  alone.  We  are  but  beginning 
to  reap  this  precious  harvest.  The  amount  of  this  export  is  and  will 
be  fluctuating  from  a  variety  of  well-known  causes.  But  the  law  of  its 
increase  is  fairly  seen  in  the  facts  which  I  have  stated.  It  is  not  merely 
the  saving  in  the  burden  of  freights  that  is  the  result  of  our  improved 
means  of  communication,  ample  as  that  is  to  justify  a  far  greater  ex- 
penditure than  we  have  ever  made  or  even  proposed.  It  is  the  possibility 
of  seUing  this  vast  product  at  all  which  our  improved  communication 
has  created.  It  is  not  the  annual  sa\'ing  of  fifteen  millions  of  freights, 
but  it  is  the  production  and  sale  to  Great  Britain  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  million  dollars'  worth  of  food  that  in  the  article  of  wheat 
alone  our  cheap  lines  of  transport  has  made  possible. 

Our  chief  articles  of  export  are  breadstulfs,  cotton,  provisions,  in- 
cluding live  animals,  and  illuminating  oils.  Of  these  ^ve  exported  in 
1883  nearly  $700,000,000  in  value.  Oui"  export  must  be  exi)ected  to  be 
constanth^  on  the  increase.  It  amounted  to  §219.932,650  in  the  first 
three  months  of  1883,  against  8179.829,859  in  the  corresponding  period 
of  1882.    We  are  not  subjected  to  the  same  close  rivalry  in  the  articles 


20 


of  cottou  and  illnininatiug  oils  as  in  breadstiiffs  and  provisions.  But 
the  saving  in  freight  is  as  important  as  is  the  large  if  not  equal  saving 
on  the  domestic  freights  of  the  imports  from  abroad  in  the  process  of 
their  distribution  to  the  homes  and  places  of  labor  where  they  are  con- 
sumed. I  do  not  know  that  political  economy  has  settled  the  question 
Tvhat  proportion  of  a  tax  like  that  of  transportation  or  a  duty  on  im- 
ports falls  on  the  producer  and  what  on  the  consumer.  But  it  is  surely 
far  within  bounds  to  say  that  a  general  reduction  in  freights  equal  to 
that  which  saves  ten  cents  a  bushel  on  wheat  for  its  transport  from  the 
centre  of  its  production  to  the  seaboard  would  work  a  total  saving  to 
the  American  people  in  the  articles  which  are  the  subjects  of  our  foreign 
commerce  of  at  least  ninety  millions  annually. 

It  is  impossible  within  the  limits  of  a  single  speech  to  state  one  in  a 
hundred  of  the  striking  instances  of  the  reduction  of  railroad  freights 
by  the  improvement  of  the  means  of  water  transportation.  This  in- 
fluence is,  of  course,  chiefly  confined  to  bulky  articles  such  as  bread- 
stuffs,  coal,  lime,  clay,  stone,  minerals,  lumber,  cotton,  where  the  ne- 
cessities of  commerce  do  not  demand  high  rates  of  speed,  and  where  the 
freight  is  a  large  proportion  of  the  value. 

Mr.  Nimmo  declares  that  the  regulating  influence  of  the  two  great 
water  lines — the  lakes  and  the  Mississippi — is  felt  throughout  the  en- 
tire Western  and  Northwestern  States  and  Territories.  The  growth  of 
Chicago  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  the  most  important  center  in  this 
country  of  a  railroad  system,  subject  to  the  regulating  influence  of  cheap 
water  lines  to  the  seaboard. 

JNIr.  Nimmo  sums  up  the  result  with  reference  to  the  Erie  Canal  as 
follows  :  The  rates  per  ton  per  mile  on  the  railroads  and  the  canal  shew 
a  great  reduction  from  1857  to  1880.  In  1857  the  rates  per  ton  per  mile 
were — 


I  1857. 

'  1880. 

New  York  Central  Railroad  

3.12 

.88 

.799 

.49 

The  Erie  Canal— 

He  says — 

continues  to  exert  an  exceedingly  important  influence  as  a  regulator  of  rail 
rates,  and  although  with  respect  to  through  trafHe  the  Erie  Canal  successfully 
competes  with  the  Xew  York  Central  Railroad  chiefly  for  the  transportation  of 
grain,  minerals,  lumber,  and  other  coarse  freights;  yet  if  the  rail  rates  on  the 
higher  classes  of  freights  are  much  advanced,  a  large  deflection  of  traffic  at  once 
takes  place  to  the  slower  and  cheaper  mode  of  transportation  by  the  canal.  Rail 
rates  are  adjusted  with  reference  to  this  fact. 

Henry  G.  Herte,  esq.,  secretary  of  the  National  Cotton  Exchange,  gives 
a  statement  of  the  eflect  of  the  opening  of  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi 
on  the  commerce  of  that  river  and  the  region  lying  west  of  it,  in  which 
statistics  rise  to  eloquence. 

Mr.  AVindom  gives  the  following  result  of  the  investigations  of  his 
committee,  report,  pages  52  and  53: 

During  the  year  1872  the  "all-rail"  rates  were  24.5  per  cent,  higher  than  the 
"all-water"  rates,  the  "  lake  and  rail  "  rates  were  7  per  cent,  higher  than  the 
"  all- water  "  rates,  and  the  "  all-rail  "  rates  were  16.3  per  cent,  higher  than  the 
"lake  and  rail"  rates. 

The  average  summer  rail  rate  for  1872  (May,  June,  July,  August,  September, 
October,  and  November)  was  31f  cents,  and  the  average  winter  rail  rates  in  1872 


21 


(December,  January,  February,  March,  and  April)  was  36|  cents,  the  average 
winter  rate  being-  IG  per  cent,  higher  than  tiie  average  summer  rate.  By  com- 
paring the  all-rail  rates  for  the  months  of  June,  July,  ami  Augu.sl  with  the  all- 
rail  rates  for  December,  January,  and  February  we  ol)tain  a  more  accurate  ex- 
pression of  the  etlect  of  ample  water  facilities  in  competition  with  etiually  ample 
rail  facilities.  The  average  all-rail  rate  during  the  three  summer  months  just 
named  was 27  cents,  and  the  average  of  the  winter  months  was  >y,  the  winter 
average  being  HA  per  cent,  higher  than  the  summer  average,  when  the  compe- 
tition of  water  transport  was  in  full  force.  It  may  be  supposed  that  the  increase 
in  tbe  rail  rates  during  the  winter  months  is  caused  by  the  increased  cost  of 
transport  during  that  season  of  the  year,  but  this  is  true  only  to  a  very  limited 
extent.  The  chief  cause  is  the  absence  of  competition  by  lake  and  canal.  This 
is  evident  from  the  fact  that  although  the  cost  of  transportation  by  rail  is  not 
greater  in  October  and  November  than  in  June  and  July,  yet  the  average  of  the 
rates  during  the  former  months  is  HA  per  cent,  higher  than  the  average  of  the 
rates  during  the  latter  months. 

The  pressure  of  traffic  during  the  months  of  October  and  November,  when  the 
facilities  for  transport  by  water  are  limited,  in  connection  with  the  fact  that  the 
Erie  Canal  is  at  that  time  taxed  to  its  utmost  capacity,  causes  an  advance  in  the 
rates  on  the  lake  and  on  the  canal,  and  the  rail  rates  at  once  go  up  to  about  the 
average  for  the  winter  months.  It  appears  that  in  this  case  the  increased 
charges  by  rail  are  due  solely  to  the  increase  in  the  rates  on  the  lake  and  on  the 
canal.  This  fact  was  clearly  stated  before  the  committee  by  Mr.  J.  M.  Walker, 
president  of  the  Chicago,  Burlington  and  Quincy  Railway  (evidence,  page  266), 
a  road  which  does  not  compete  with  any  water  line.  Mr.  Walker  states  that  the 
winter  and  summer  rates  are  the  same  on  his  road,  and  he  thinks  that  "  this  is 
the  rule  with  the  Western  roads  generally."  He  states,  also,  that  he  believes 
that  those  roads  which  run  in  competition  with  transport  on  the  Mississippi 
River  makes  such  changes  in  their  freight  taritt's. 

It  is  generally  true  that  the  roads  which  increase  their  rates  during  the  winter 
months  are  those  which  run  in  competition  with  the  water  lines  during  the  sum- 
mer months,  and  it  is  quite  probable,  therefore,  that  but  for  such  water  competi- 
tion the  winter  rates  would  be  maintained  throughout  the  year. 

Mr.  Franklin  Edson,  the  president  of  the  New  York  Produce  Ex- 
-  change,  declares  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Windom: 

The  water  lines  may  be  so  improved  that  during  seven  and  one-half  months 
of  the  year  the  time  of  transit  from  Chicago  and  Milwaukee  to  New  York  need 
not  be  more  than  ten  to  eleven  days,  at  a  cost  of  about  S3  to  ^i.oO  per  ton,  in- 
cluding all  charges,  and  quantity  always  guaranteed.  The  said  charge  in  sum- 
mer from  Chicago  to  New  York  can  not  be  less  than  S8  per  ton  to  pay  actual 
expenses  and  no  dividends,  and  in  order  to  pay  dividends  there  has  to  be  an 
advance  of  about  $4  per  ton  in  the  railway  freight  charges,  which  advance  is 
uniformly  made  every  year  on  the  close  of  the  water  lines  by  frost.  (Windom, 
App.,176). 

A  striking  exhibition  of  the  effect  of  water  competition  in  reducing 
rail  freight  charges  is  given  to  the  Senate  committee  by  Mr.  Utley, 
president  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal: 

The  freight  charges  on  the  Chicago,  Rock  Island  and  Pacific  Railroad  is  only 
8  cents  per  hundred  pounds  from  Henry  to  Chicago,  between  which  points  there 
is  water  competition,  while  the  route  from  Tiskilwa,  only  twelve  miles  farther 
west  than  Henry  and  beyond  the  eflfect  of  canal  competition,  is  15  cents  per  hun- 
dred pounds,  or  nearly  as  much  for  twelve  miles  as  for  one  hundred  miles. 

This  is  but  one  of  hundreds,  probably  thousands,  of  instances  no  less 
remarkable.  The  cost  of  the  freight  of  a  bale  of  cotton  from  New  York 
to  Cold  Brook,  in  the  county  w^here  I  dwell,  one  hundred  and  eighty-four 
miles,  was,  at  a  recent  date,  .28  per  hundred  pounds.  The  charge  for 
the  same  bale  of  cotton  transported  by  all  rail  from  Savannah  to  New 
York,  a  thousand  miles,  was  at  the  same  period  a  trifle  less. 

This  is  because  of  the  competing  water  line.  Every  dollar  expended 
in  the  improvement  of  the  harbor  at  Savannah  cheapens  the  cotton  to 
the  manufacturer  in  the  interior  of  Massachusetts. 

I  annex  some  tables  showing  the  constant  reduction  of  freights  and 
the  comparative  cost  of  freights  by  water  and  by  rail. 


22 


III 


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iii 


23 


Thus  the  competition  by  Avater  operates  in  reduction  of  railroad  tariffs,  and 
no  understanding  among  railroad  managers  can  prevent  it. 

[From  report  on  commerce  and  navigation,  1883,  Treasury  Department,  page 

Ixvii.] 

Average  lake  and  canal  rates,  including  Buffalo  transfer  chargtjs  and  tolls : 
1868  to  1872,  both  inclusive,  23  cents  per  bushel  for  wheat. 
1873  to  1877,  both  inclusive,  12.4  cents  per  bushel  for  wheat. 
1878  to  1883,  both  inclusive,  10.7  cents  per  bushel  for  wheat. 

[From  New  York  Produce  Exchange  annual  report  for  1882,  page  508.] 
Average  lake  rates  between  Chicago  and  Buffalo : 
1868  to  1872,  both  inclusive,  7.78  cents  per  bushel. 
1873  to  1877,  both  inclusive,  4.34  cents  per  bushel. 
1878  to  1882,  both  inclusive,  3.90  cents  per  bushel. 

Foreign  commerce  is  represented  by  an  export  in  the  twelve  months 
ending  April  30,  1884,  of  $800,194,901,  and  an  import  of  $761,405,450. 
Vast  as  these  sums  appear,  onr  exports  of  food  and  cotton  are  yet  small 
compared  with  the  productive  capacity  of  onr  domain.  The  center  of 
production  of  each  is  still  rapidly  traveling  westAvard.  We  hope  in  a 
not  distant  futu  re  to  rival  them  with  our  export  of  manufactures.  How 
narrow  and  timid  the  parsimony  which  grudges  the  outlay  of  a  few 
millions  when  imperatively  demanded  by  this  immense  interest !  Every 
dollar  expended  in  removing  the  obstructions  in  the  pathway  of  this 
commerce  to  the  sea  has  borne  fruit  and  will  hereafter  bear  fruit  a  hun- 
dred-Ibid  in  national  wealth  and  power.  All  expenditures  we  have  ever 
made  or  ever  proposed  on  lakes,  rivers,  and  harbors  together  are  trifling 
compared  with  what  our  rivals'  are  putting  forth  to  maint{iin  themselves 
against  our  competition.  We  have  23,000  miles  of  stormy  and  dan- 
gerous coast  line  on  the  oceans  alone.  England  has  but  1,3(X);  yet  she 
expended  fifteen  millions  on  her  harbors  in  1874. 

The  breakwater  at  Plymouth  cost  her $7,214, 325.  That  at  Portland 
cost  her  $5,043,870.  Holyhead  cost  her  $6,490,895.  The  total  ex- 
penditure of  the  Clyde  Trust  to  June  30,  1875,  was  £6,774,315  or, 
about  $33,000,000,  a  sum  greater  than  we  had  expended  on  all  our 
rivers  and  harbors  together  from  the  foundation  of  the  Government  to 
1873,  and  three  times  as  much  as  we  had  expended  on  our  20, 000  miles 
of  Western  rivers.  This  outlay  has  converted  the  Clyde  from  a  shallow 
stream,  fordable  at  many  points  between  Glasgow  and  the  sea,  into  a 
river  capable  of  bearing  on  its  waters  the  commerce  and  ships  of  all 
nations.  Yet  we  are  accused  of  extravagance  when  we  would  devote  a 
fifth  part  of  this  sum  to  the  thousand  miles  of  the  Mississippi.  I  can 
not  give  the  expenditure  upon  the  Mersey.  But  the  debt  of  the  Mer- 
sey Docks  and  Harbor  Board  outstanding  in  1882  was  181,424,405. 

It  is  difficult  to  find  a  full  and  satisfactory  statement  of  the  expendi- 
ture of  Great  Britain  for  this  class  of  works,  as  they  are  largely  com- 
mitted to  special  boards,  whose  returns  are  not  accessible;  but  some 
facts  we  know.  To  stimulate  the  cotton  culture  of  India  as  a  rival  to 
ours  she  guaranteed  the  interest  on  an  outlay  for  Indian  improvements 
of  $400,000,000,  She  is  now  contemplating  a  much  larger  outlay  for 
India.  She  pays  annual  interest  on  the  Suez  exchequer  bonds  of  £199,- 
874,  and  now  proposes  a  second  canal  across  that  isthmus. 

Canada  enlists  in  the  competition  with  an  expenditure  on  her  gov- 
ernment railroads  since  1868  of  $30,406,481.  She  subsidizes  a  line  of 
steamships  to  Brazil.  In  1880-'81  she  paid  on  capital  account  $8, 17(5,316, 
of  which  $4,968,503  represents  outlay  on  the  Pacific  Kailroad,  $608,702 
on  the  Intercolonial  Railway,  $1,242,903  on  the  Welland  Canal,  $411,608 
on  the  Ottawa  canals,  $334,681  on  Dominion  lands,  and  the  remainder 


'on  the  other  canals.  In  the  same  year  she  spent  $2,900,000  on  public 
works.  In  the  year  alter  the  union  of  her  two  provinces,  Canada,  with 
a  population  of  little  more  than  a  million  and  a  total  revenue  of 
$1,4HS,000,  expended  two  millions  lor  her  canals. 

England  is  not  for  herself  or  her  colonies  contented  to  foster  her  com- 
merce by  this  class  of  expenditures  alone.  Her  navy  charge,  which  for 
1882  was  $;53,782,265,  the  cost  of  her  army,  which  for  the  same  year 
was  $92,222,925,  the  subsidies  she  grants  her  lines  of  steamships,  her 
costlj^  diplomatic  service,  are  but  the  seed  which  this  great  husbandman 
sows  broadcast,  whose  return  is  reaped  in  the  abundant  harvest  of  the 
commerce  of  barbarous  and  semi-barbarous  states. 

The  statistics  of  France  which  pertain  to  this  subject  are  more  exact. 
General  Wright,  the  Chief  of  Engineers,  has  caused  a  table  to  be  pre- 
pared showing  her  expenditures  from  1878  to  1882. 

[From  the  Almanach  de  Gotha.] 
Almanac  of  1879— Expenditures  of  1878. 

MINISTERE  DES  TRAVAUX  PUBLICS, 
(a)  Service  ordinaire. 

Routes  et  ponts   32, 150, 000 

Navigation  interieure   10,200,000 

Ports   6, 100, 000 

Total  (in  francs)   48,450,000=  $9,690,000  00 

(6)  Travaux  extraordinaires. 

Routes  et  ponts   $5, 792, 100 

Navigation  interieure   10,490,000 

Ports   12,935,000 

Total  (in  francs)   29,217,100=  $5,843,420  00 

Total   15,533,420  00 

Almanac  of  1880— Expenditures  of  1879. 

BIINISTERE  DES  TRAVAUX  PUBLICS. 

(a)  Service  ordinaire. 

Routes  et  ponts   33, 150, 000 

Navigation  interieure   9,500,000 

Ports   6, 000, 000 

Total  (in  francs)   48, 650, 000=   9, 730, 000  00 

(6)  Travaux  extraordinaires. 

Routes  et  ponts   6, 215, 000 

Navigation  interieure   3,410.000 

Ports   6, 690, 000 

Total  (in  francs)   16, 315, 000=   3, 263, 000  00 

Total   12,993.000  00 

Almanac  of  1881 — Expenditures  of  1880. 

MINISTERE  DES  TRAVAUX  PUBLICS. 

(a)  Service  ordinaire. 

Routes  et  ponts  ,   36, 150, 000 

Navigation  interieure   9, 500, 000 

Ports   6, 000, 000 

Total  (in  francs)   51,650,000=  10,330,000  00 

(6)  Travaxix  extraordinaires. 

Routes  et  ponts   6,  354, 000 

Navigation  interieure   3,  720, 000 

Ports   9, 085, 000 

Total  (in  francs)   19,159,000=  3,831,800  00 


Total 


14, 161, 800  00 


25 


Almanac  of  1S82— Expenditures  of  1881. 

MINISTERE  DES  TRAVAUX  PUBLICS. 

(a)  (Se/TJce  ordinaire. 

Koutes  et  ponts   33.700,000 

Navigation  interieure   9,900,000 

Ports   6, 350. 000 

Total  (in  francs)   49,  950, 000=   9, 990. 000  00 

(b)  Travanx  extraordinaires. 
Routes  et  ponts   4.070.167=      814.033  40 

Total   10,804,033  40 

Almanac  of  1883— Expenditures  of  1882. 

MIXISTERE  DES  TRAVAVX  PUBLICS. 

(a)  Service  ordijiaire. 

Routes  et  ponts   33, 177. 000 

Navigation  interieure   10, 9<X),  000 

Ports   7, 200, 000 

Total  (in  francs)   51,277,000=  10,255,400  00 

(6)  Travaux  extraordinaire. 

Routes  et  ponts   12,943,167 

T^avigation  interieure   2, 800, 000 

Ports   2,300,000 

Total  (in  francs)   IS,  043, 167=   3, 608,  633  40 


Total   13,864,033  40 

Note. — Under  the  head  of  "  Ordinary  service  of  ports,"'  the  repairs  of  light" 
houses  and  maintenance  of  lights  are  believed  to  be  included. 

To  the  above  should  also  be  added  such  grants  as  may  have  been  made  for 
general  or  local  improvement  by  special  acts  of  appropriation.  These  can  only 
be  obtained  by  searching  the  ofhcial  publications  of  the  laws. 

[From  Journal  Ofiiciel,  December  30,  1882— budget  of  1883.] 
Department  of  public  works:  Francs. 

Ourrent  appropriation   89,  725, 681 

Extra  appropriation   49,  462, 660 


139, 188,  .341 

I  This  total  includes  salaries,  works  in  Algeria  and  Corsica,  streets  of  Paris, 
light-houses  and  lights,  railroads  built  by  the  state  or  in  which  the  state  is  in- 
terested, and  other  items  that  would  not  be  included  in  our  river  and  harbor 
acts.  The  current  appropriation  under  the  head  of  "  harbors,  light-houses  and 
lights,  maintenance,  and  current  repaii'S,"  is  7,200,000  francs.  How  much  of  this 
is  for  harbors  does  not  appear. 

ITEMS  OF  APPROPRIATIOX  FOR  1883. 


Ordinary  service :  Francs. 

Bridges  and  roads,  maintenance,  and  current  repairs   29,  377.  000 

Rivers,  maintenance,  and  current  repairs   5,  250. 000 

Canals,  maintenance,  and  current  repairs   5. 650.  (XK) 

Harbors,  including  light-houses  and  lights   7, 200. 000 


47,  477, 000 

Extraox'dinary  ser-\-ice  ;  i.  e.,  additional  work  : 
Extension  and  rectitication  and  filling  up  gaps  in  the  system  of  na- 


tional roads  n   11, 000,  000 

Construction  of  bridges   1,800.000 

Improvement  of  rivers   1,750,000 

Protection  from  overflow   1, 100, 000 

Improvement  of  canals   1,  050,  OOO 

Improvement  of  harbors   2, 300, 000 


19, 000, 000 
47, 477, 000 


66,  477, 000 


Sit,  2y.),  400 


2G 


I  take  the  following  from  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  October,  1882:: 

In  brief  the  actual  water  ways  of  France  amount  to  an  aggregate  length  of 
7,069  miles,  not  including  any  maritime  navigation,  such  as  that  of  the  Seine 
below  Kouen.  The  cost  of  this  fine  system  has  been  £43,608,516,  or  £6,230  per 
mile.  One  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirteen  additional  miles  have  been 
authorized  and  are  in  course  of  execution  by  the  state,  the  cost  of  which,  to- 
gether with  that  of  the  improvements,  required  on  the  existing  lines,  will  at 
least  be  an  equal  sum.  France  will  shortl  v  be  possessed  of  8,880  miles  of  inland 
water  way,  provided  at  a  cost  of  from  £80,000,000  to  £100,000,000. 

•  •  •  •  •  :>:  !): 

On  the  7,069  miles  of  French  canals,  acconling  to  the  report  of  M.  Krantz,  the 
transports  amounted  in  1874  to  2,132,957.000  imit«  of  traffic  or  kilometric 
tons.  This  is  equal  to  126,(KK)  tons  per  mile.  In  1868,  according  to  the  Etude 
hiatorique  i  t  stntiqur  *ur  Voie^  de  wmmunication  df  la  France,  par  M.  Felix  Lv/- 
(XJ«,  published  in  1873,  the  navigation  dues  produced  3,503,000  francs  for  1.690,- 
tlOO.OOO  kilometric  tons.  This  charge,  which  may  be  taken  to  cover  cost  of 
maintenance  and  interest  of  money  on  the  canals,  is  equivalent  to  0.0325d.  per 
ton  per  mile.  In  1847,  under  the  regime  of  the  old  tariff,  the  dues  amounted  to 
9,931,000  francs  for  1,198,000,000  tons  kilometric. 

Since  1847,  therefore,  by  comparing  the  two  reports,  it  would  seem  that  the 
French  canal  dues  have  been  reduced  by  three-fourths,  and  that  the  canal  traffic 
has  nearly  doubled.  The  chief  disjidvantage  of  the  minute  statistics  of  which 
the  French  are  justly  proud  is  the  long  time  that  generally  elapses  before  their 
outcome  is  thoroughly  known.  The  date  to  which  the  figures  of  M.  Krantz 
apply  is  not  stated  in  his  report.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  actual 
movement  on  the  French  canals  is  very  much  greater  than  the  average  above 
cited.    *   *  • 

Without  wearying  our  readers  with  any  further  arithmetical  detail,  we  may 
say  that  the  closest  calculation  of  the  cost  price  of  conveyance  on  the  railways 
of  the  United  Kingdom  which  has  been  found  hitherto  practicable  gives  for 
the  year  1878  the  cost  of  a  little  more  than  one-fifth  of  a  penny  (0,2076f?.)  per 
mile  for  every  ton  of  loaded  train.  This  price  compares  favorably  with  the  cor- 
responding item,  where  it  has  elsewhere  been  definitively  ascertained.  It  is  al- 
most exactly  that  of  the  working  of  the  ancien  resean  of  the  Orleans  Railway  in 
1872,  and,  as  a  rule,  is  intermediate  between  the  cost  of  continental  lines  and 
those  of  the  East  Indian  and  Pennsylvania  railways. 

At  this  price,  supposing  all  the  wagons  to  be  full  and  the  traffic  to  be  conducted 
on  the  most  favorable  conditions,  the  cost  of  conveying  a  ton  of  coal  amounts  to 
an  average  of  0.472fZ.  per  mile,  allowing  for  the  return  of  the  empty  wagons. 
This,  however,  is  for  the  tabulated  working  expenses  alone.  If  we  take  them 
as  equal  to  52  per  cent,  of  revenue,  as  was  the  case  in  1879,  it  will  require  the  price 
of  0.908<f.  ix;r  ton  per  mile  to  pay  4^  i)er  cent,  interest  on  capital.  In  other  words, 
the  work  which  is  done  for  a  third  of  a  penny  by  canal  will  cost  uine-tenths  of 
a  penny  on  a  railway ;  the  former  price  covering  5  per  cent,  interest  on  capital, 
and  sinking  fund,  the  latter  covering  only  4i  per  cent,  interest  and  no  sinking 
fund. 

These  statistics  become  doubly  impressive  when  vre  reflect  that  we 
have  a  single  American  State,  one  only  among  our  thirty-eight  States 
and  eight  Territories,  which  is  as  large  as  France  in  territory,  and  far 
greater  in  its  rich  and  Tariona  productive  capacity. 

The  Constitution  commits  to  Congress  the  otire  of  commerce  with 
foreign  nations  and  among  the  States.  The  title  of  these  two  objects 
to  the  national  care  is  equal,  if  we  look  only  to  the  words  of  the  con- 
stitutional mandate.  But  important  as  is  foreign  commerce  in  its  rela- 
tion either  to  national  wealth  or  national  dignity,  domestic  commerce 
is  infinitely  more  important.  I  wish  to  repeation  this  connection  a  few 
sentences  from  what  I  have  said  elsewhere. 

We  have  a  dominion,  excluding  Alaska,  greater  than  the  Roman 
Empii'e  at  its  largest.  It  is  only  a  sixth  less  in  extent  than  all  Europe 
with  her  sixty  empires,  kingdoms,  and  republics.  But  by  our  mar- 
velous lake  and  river  system  this  extent  of  country  is  severed  for  all 
purposes  of  internal  and  external  commerce  into  twenty  islands  of 
the  size  of  Great  Britain.  It  is  2, 750  miles  from  Boston  to  Queenstown. 
This  pathway  is  over  a  barren  and  desolate  sea,  beset  with  mist  and 


27 


iceberg,  bearing  no  living  thing  upon  its  bosom  except  the  vessels 
which  brave  its  dangers.  At  the  end  of  the  voyage  is  a  foreign,  rival 
nation  to  share,  and  perhaps  to  monopolize,  the  profit  of  the  advent- 
ure. Not  so  with  the  pathways  of  domestic  commerce.  It  is  a  thou- 
sand miles  bj  river  from  Pittsburg  to  Cairo.  It  is  a  thousand  miles 
from  Cairo  to  the  month  of  the  Mississippi.  Tliere  are  2,500  naviga- 
ble miles  trom  Saint  Louis  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Missouri.  And 
yet  these  are  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  internal  water  courses  of 
America  adapted  or  easily  to  be  a<l:ipted  to  the  purposes  of  national 
commerce.  Europe  possesses  no  such  dominion.  She  has  no  consid- 
erable towns,  except  those  in  her  eastern  plain,  more  than  four  hundred 
miles  distant  from  the  sea.  Her  Danube,  her  Rhine,  her  Rhone,  her 
Thames  are  pretty  streamlets  compiired  with  tlu^se  which,  with  their 
approaches  and  affluents,  demand  the  c-are  of  American  statesmanship. 

Our  domestic  commerce  does  not  travel  the  pathless  and  desolate 
wastes  of  the  sea.  Its  river  pathways  are  bounded  by  farms  and  fac^ 
tories  and  homes  and  populous  toAvns.  The  river  is  the  creator  of 
the  city.  Domestic  commerce  is  all  American.  England  spends  fifty 
millions  a  year  on  her  navy,  in  time  of  peace,  that  she  may  command 
the  markets  of  semi-barbarous  nations.  Our  domestic  commerce  does 
not  fijQd  India  or  Egypt  or  Turkey  at  the  end  of  its  journey.  It  finds 
there  Iowa  and  Wisconsin  and  ^lissouri  and  California  and  Oregon. 
It  is  perpetually  creating  new  and  free  StiUes,  like  those  which  are  com- 
ing into  life  between  the  Mississippi  and  the  Piu;ific:  like  that  bear- 
ing the  name  of  Washington,  which  our  own  sons  are  building  on 
Puget  Sound,  to  be  in  the  near  future  another  and  a  larger  Massachu- 
setts. Domestic  commerce  divides  its  profits  with  no  foreigner.  It  is 
American  at  both  ends. 

The  statistics  of  this  American  commerce  are  as  yet  but  imperfectly 
gathered.  But  we  know  enough  to  conceive  dimly  its  immense  and 
rapidly  growing  proportions.  The  whole  exports  of  this  country  for 
the  year  ending  April  3,  18S4,  were:  Domestic  products,  $784,302,373; 
foreign  products,  $32,200,157;  in  all,  $816,502,530. 

The  total  value  of  American  manufactures  by  the  census  of  1880 
was  §5, 369, 579, 191,  of  which  only  about  one  hundred  millions,  or  2  per 
cent. ,  was  exported.  Xinety-eight  per  cent. ,  therefore,  becomes  the 
subject  of  internal  commerce. 

It  would  be  Ciisy  to  demonstrate  that  our  domestic  commerce  exceeds 
our  foreign  in  its  real  value  to  the  nation  more  than  a  hundred-fold. 
We  are  groping  still  blindly  after  new  policies  which  shall  increase  our 
exports  and  bring  back  to  us  our  foreign  Ciirrying  trade.  But  every  ten 
years  of  our  life  adds  30  per  cent,  to  our  population,  brings  to  us  a  new 
nation  of  15,000,000  of  persons  to  be  our  customers  and  producers  at 
home.  ^Vhat  foreign  commerce  is  like  that?  The  commerce  of  the 
cities  of  the  Ohio  River  is  undoubtedly  more  than  two  thousand  millions 
a  year.  We  annually  pay  for  transportation  more  than  double  th  e  entire 
revenues  of  the  Gk)vemment.  Our  seven  Ohio  States  have  100,000  square 
miles  of  bituminous  coal  field,  more  than  sLx  times  that  of  Great  Britain, 
France,  and  Belgium  combined.  The  production  of  their  workshops 
exceeds  by  more  than  50  per  cent,  the  whole  imjwrts  and  exports  of 
Great  Britain  to  and  from  all  countries.  Even  in  the  cities  where  our 
foreign  commerce  is  greatest  it  is  insignificant  in  comparison  with  their 
domestic  commerce  and  their  manufacture.  The  trade  of  Xew  York 
city  in  the  products  of  the  lalxtr  of  Xew  Enghmd  alone  is  greater  than 


28 


the  whole  foreign  coiuineree  rarried  on  at  that  city,  while  the  product 
of  her  niaunfactures  was  in  1880  $814,000,000. 

I  must  not  al)use  the  patience  of  the  Senate  by  relating  the  wonder- 
ful and  fascinating  story  of  the  growth  of  our  commerce  as  shown  in 
certain  localities,  such  as  Chicago,  Cincinnati,  Saint  Louis,  the  Upper 
Missouri,  and  our  great  empire  on  the  Pacitic,  The  Senator  from  Ore- 
gon told  us  something  the  other  day  of  the  marvelous  developments 
and  still  more  marvelous  promise  of  his  o^vn  State. 

It  is  estimated  that  Washington  Territory  will  send  abroad  this  year 
350,000,000  feet  of  lumber,  200,000  tons  of  coal,  200,000  pounds  of 
hops,  200,000  cases  of  salmon,  5,000,000  bushels  of  wheat,  3,000,000 
bushels  of  oats,  1,000,000  bushels  of  potatoes,  and  2,500,000  pounds 
of  w^ool.  In  cargoes  of  1,500  tons  this  produce  will  load  nine  hundred 
large  ships. 

Mr.  Poor,  in  his  railroad  manual,  estimates  the  value  of  the  tonnage 
moved  in  this  country  by  rail  alone  in  1881,  deducting  one-third  for 
duplication,  at  $12, 000, 000, 000.  Taking  the  movements  of  merchan- 
dise by  water  ways  and  land  ways  other  than  by  rail  into  account,  the 
domestic  produce  moved  and  exchanged  in  this  country  must  be  at  least 
between  thirty  and  forty  thousand  millions  of  dollars  in  value,  or  more 
than  forty  times  the  value  of  our  exports.  The  river  commerce  of  the 
single  city  of  Cincinnati  was  last  year  more  than  $45,000,000,  There 
passes  each  year  up  and  down  Detroit  River  a  tonnage  greater  than 
enters  Liverpool.  The  number  of  vessels  that  go  in  and  out  of  Chicago 
annually  exceeds  by  7,000  those  of  New  York;  and  although  these 
vessels  are,  of  course,  smaller  in  size,  the  acliial  tonnage  of  Chicago  is 
much  more  than  half  that  of  New  York.  These  water  ways  are  not 
only  of  vast  importance  in  themselves,  but  they  are  important  also  as 
as  a  check  upon  the  prices  charged  by  the  railroad.  They  are  free. 
When  the  water  way  is  once  fitted  for  transport  it  is  the  property  of  all 
mankind. 

The  legislators  of  the  States  and  of  the  nation  have  exhausted  their 
ingenuity  to  impose  shackles  upon  the  railroad.  Sometimes  the  at- 
tempt has  been  to  fix  rates  by  law;  sometimes  a  rate  according  to  dis- 
tance; sometimes  relief  is  sought  by  endowing  competing  routes;  and 
in  one  memoral)le  instance  the  State  has  been  urged  to  take  the  busi- 
ness of  railroad  management  into  its  own  hands.  But  the  strength  of 
these  giants  frequently,  I  am  bound  to  say,  with  reason,  and  w^  ith  the 
laws  of  trade  on  their  side,  bursts  in  sunder  these  puny  legislative  fet- 
ters. Railroad  competition  terminates  in  railroad  combination.  The 
only  check  on  the  powder  of  the  great  railroad  lines,  when  in  concert, 
over  the  commerce  of  the  nation,  is  the  comj^etition  of  the  water  way. 
When  the  Erie  Canal  and  the  harbors  of  the  lakes  freeze  in  the  winter 
up  go  the  freights.  When  canal,  lake,  and  river  open  in  the  spring 
down  go  the  freights. 

I  do  not  and  can  not  overstate  the  imi)ortance  of  this  consideration 
to  the  American  peoi^le,  and  more  especially  to  Massachusetts.  The 
diminution  of  the  price  of  freight  on  the  railroads  of  this  country  1 
mill  a  ton  a  mile  makes  an  annual  saving  to  the  people  of  870,000,000. 
Great  as  is  the  interest  of  the  South  and  West  in  domestic  commerce 
and  transportation,  it  is  not  so  great  as  that  of  Massachusetts.  She 
manufactures  nearly  one  thousand  million  in  value  every  year.  Of 
this  I  am  justified,  by  the  opinion  of  a  business  man  of  large  experi- 
ence, in  saying  not  one-fiftieth  is  sent  beyond  sea.  The  rest  goes  all 
over  the  land,  by  river  and  rail  and  lake,  to  be  distributed  in  the  West 


21) 


and  South,  Avhence  come  her  food  and  her  iron  and  coal,  and  ^vool  and 
hides  and  cotton. 

Every  obstruction  removed  from  the  channel  in  a  Western  river, 
every  sunken  rock  blown  out  from  a  lake  harbor,  every  creek  or  inlet 
by  which  a  navigable  stream  reaches  its  arms  into  the  midst  of  wheat- 
fields  or  cotton  plantations,  is  an  obstacle  the  less  in  the  way  of  the 
food  to  the  mouths  of  her  workmen,  in  the  way  of  the  material  which 
their  cunning  fingers  are  to  change  into  products  of  use  and  beauty,  in 
the  way  of  the  sale  of  her  manufactures  to  the  customers  on  whom  her 
wealth  is  to  depend. 

To  four  principal  objects  must  the  statesmanship  of  Massachusetts 
look  in  the  future.    Four  things  are  needed  for  her  prosperity. 

First.  Education  and  skill  in  her  people. 

Second.  The  maintenance  and  increase  of  her  rate  of  wages. 

Third.  The  annihilation  of  time  and  distance  in  the  conveyance  of 
her  material  and  her  products. 

Fourth.  A  rich  and  prosperous  South  and  West  with  whom  to  deal. 

]\Ir.  Windom  estimates  and  demonstrates  that  the  annual  saving  to 
Xew  England  on  the  transportation  of  grain  alone  by  the  completion 
of  a  single  water  line  costing  about  eleven  million  of  dollars,  would 
have  amounted  in  1872  to  S6, 169, 834,  and  a  saving  of  $6.70  per  ton  on 
all  the  tonnage  between  the  ^Mississippi  and  the  East.  So  that  this 
single  improvement  would  have  paid  for  itself  in  a  single  year  in  its 
saving  in  the  cost  of  food  and  material  to  New  England  alone. 

The  average  haul  on  the  Xew  York  Central  and  Hudson  River  Rail- 
road Company  for  the  year  ending  September  30, 1881,  was  228.34  miles. 
If  we  call  the  average  for  the  United  States  of  the  tonnage  hauled  two 
hundred  miles,  a  saving  of  one  mill  per  ton  per  mile  is  an  annual  sav- 
ing of  870,000,000,  if  Mr.  Poor's  estimate  of  the  whole  tonnage  for 
that  year,  350,000.000  tons,  be  taken  as  correct. 

Of  the  saving  to  Xew  England  in  the  diminution  of  freights  of  course 
the  larger  share  inures  to  Massachusetts.  Her  share  in  foreign  com- 
merce can  be  retained  and  extended  only  as  she  can  diminish  the  burden 
of  transportation  between  the  interior  and  the  seaboard.  To  cheapen 
her  supply  of  food  she  must  place  the  granaries  of  the  West  at  the  door 
of  her  workshops.  Every  diminution  in  the  cost  of  bringing  material 
and  coal  to  her  workshops  and  carrying  her  jDroduct  to  market  aids  her 
skilled  labor  in  its  competition  with  foreign  rivals  and  the  new  manu- 
factories of  the  South  and  West. 

Massachusetts  is  the  third  manufacturing  State  in  the  Union,  and 
Boston  is  the  sixth  manufacturing  city.  In  1880  Massachusetts  con- 
verted a  material  of  three  hundred  and  eighty-six  millions  into  a  product 
of  six  hundred  and  thirty-one  millions,  not  including  the  manufacture 
of  gas  or  of  the  products  of  fisheries  or  that  done  by  railroads.  In  this 
she  employed  a  capital  of  more  than  three  hundred  millions,  and  paid  in 
wages  8128, 315, 362.  She  employed  352,255  persons,  who  undoubtedly 
support  by  their  labor  1.500,000  persons.  Boston  alone  converts  in  her 
workshops  a  material  of  eighty-one  millions  six  hundred  thousand  into 
a  product  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  millions  five  hundred  thousand, 
employing  a  capital  of  near  fifty  millions,  and  giving  occupation  to  more 
than  60, 000  persons,  and  support  to  more  than  300, 000  persons.  I  sup- 
pose ^Massachusetts  does  not  sell  one-fiftieth  of  this  product  beyond  sea, 
and  does  not  produce  one-fiftieth  of  this  material  within  her  own  bor- 
ders. She  is  the  farthest  from  her  supplies  and  her  market  of  all  the 
States  of  the  Union,  save  two.    The  freight  both  ways  handicaps  her 


30 


jnst  so  much  in  her  competition  with  her  \igorous  Western  rivals.  I 
hope  and  believe  that  she  would  support  thLs  policy  of  internal  im- 
provements on  national  grounds  alone.  But  she  certainly  can' claim  no 
credit  for  disinterestedness. 

The  cost  of  transportation  is  sheer  burden  or  tax,  benefiting  nobody. 
The  bushel  of  wheat  has  the  same  instrinsic  value  in  Minnesota  as  in 
London.  The  yard  of  cloth  has  the  same  intrinsic  value  in  Lowell  and 
in  Galveston.  To  annihilate  distance,  to  put  every  portion  of  the  coun- 
try on  an  equality  with  everv^  other  so  far  as  rela,tes  to  its  market  of 
purchase  and  its  market  of  sale  should  be  the  object  of  our  statesman- 
ship. 

There  is  another  object  not  sufficiently  considered  which  can  only  be 
accomplished  by  that  national  care  which  it  imperatively  demands. 
That  is  the  annexing  to  the  general  system  localities  of  large  productive 
capacity  whose  development  is  prevented  and  who  are  now  unable  to 
take  their  fair  share  in  its  commercial  advantages  by  physical  obstacles 
which  a  moderate  and  economic  expenditure  would  overcome.  There 
iire  many  towns  along  our  seacoast  or  the  shores  of  our  lakes  or  near 
the  mouths  of  rivers  or  creeks  where  a  large  manufacturing  business  is 
springing  up,  which  are  wholly  dependent  on  railroads  for  all  their 
freights  or  which  are  without  railroads,  where  ample  water  communica- 
tion might  be  secured  at  slight  cost.  There  are  many  "Western  commu- 
nities whose  wheat  or  bacon  or  beef  can  be  taken  to  a  foreign  market 
at  a  profit  by  the  removal,  for  a  few  thousand  dollars,  of  a  sand  bank 
or  rock  in  some  river.  There  are  many  rich  Southern  cotton  districts 
into  which  commerce  can  thrust  its  arms  by  clearing  from  mud  some 
creek  which  runs  up  from  the  neighboring  harbor.  These  are  not 
situated  dfrectly  upon  the  great  routes  across  the  continent,  but  their 
trade  is  with  foreign  nations  or  with  other  States.  Each  of  them  is 
placed  by  the  Constitution  nnder  the  care  of  Congress.  In  the  aggre- 
gate they  contribute  an  enormous  share  to  the  production  of  the  coun- 
try, and  to  their  development  we  must  look  chietly  for  its  increase. 
Such  cases  are  Cambridge,  Lynn,  and  Taunton,  in  my  own  State.  Each 
of  those  has  been  made  the  subject  of  criticism.  There  has  been  about 
$00,000  made  available  for  the  improvement  of  Charles  River  above  the 
bridges,  of  which  only  about  ten  thousand  has  been  expended.  Allien 
this  improvement  is  completed  a  population  in  Cambridge,  Brookline, 
Belmont,  WatertowTi,  Newton,  Brighton,  and  the  Back  Bay  district 
will  make  a  saving  of  from  15  to  20  cents  a  ton  upon  heavy  and  bulky 
articles  imported  from  other  States,  such  as  coal,  lumber,  iron,  lime, 
Avood,  stone,  and  sand.  This  would  make  a  saving  to  that  community 
of  the  cost  of  the  entire  improvement  in  a  single  year. 

Now,  there  are  but  two  or  th^e  hours  a  day  in  which  ve&sels  of  any 
size  can  be  safely  moved.  The  result  of  the  proposed  work  would  be  to 
enable  vessels  drawing  seventeen  feet  to  be  safely  moved  to  their  destina- 
tion in  a  single  tide.  Now  vessels  of  ten  or  twelve  feet  often  require 
two  or  three  tides.  Along  the  bank  of  this  river,  as  I  am  told,  at  a 
depth  of  two  to  six  feet,  Ls  subsoil  of  coarse,  hard  gravel,  where  the 
heaviest  warehouses  or  factories  can  be  sustiiined  without  piles,  so  that 
several  miles  of  water  front,  vnth  wharves,  warehouses,  and  factories  can 
here  be  added  to  the  water  front  of  Boston  Harbor.  Here  then  is  an 
expenditure  wliich  is  each  year  to  save  its  whole  cost  in  lifting  a  burden 
from  a  population  double  that  of  the  whole  city  of  Boston  within  my 
own  lifetime  and  many  times  double  measuring  it  by  its  products  and 
its  commercial  wants.    Lynn  is  a  city  of  40.000,  and  yet  only  seventh 


31 


in  size  of  the  tweuty-two  fair  cities  which  Massachusetts  wears  as  the 
gems  on  her  coronet.  She  hjis  six  hundred  luauufacturLag  establish- 
ments. She  employs  nearly  10,000  workmen.  She  gives  activity  to  a 
capital  of  thirteen  millions,  and  does  a  yeaiiy  business  of  thiity-five 
millions. 

She  asks  that  her  harbor  through  which  comes  to  her  her  coal,  which 
is  the  motive  power  of  her  industries,  her  lumber,  iron,  .stone,  brick, 
lime,  cement,  and  clay,  may  at  a  reasonable  cost  be  fitted  for  the  larger 
vessels  which  modern  commerce  finds  most  economical,  and  that  she 
shall  not  be  at  the  mercy  of  railroads  or  compelled  to  Land  her  supplies  ten 
miles  off  in  Baston.  Are  not  these  things  to  be  done  ?  The  commerce 
of  Lynu  and  Cambridge  is  with  foreign  nations  and  with  other  Stiites. 
It  is  borne  upon  na^'igable  waters  solely  within  the  national  jurisdic- 
tion. These  communities  could  not  do  if  they  would,  and  you  would 
not  permit  them  if  they  would,  to  do  what  Great  Britain  does  in  like 
cases — empower  a  local  board  to  do  the  work  and  defray  the  cost  by 
tolls  upon  commerce.  If  these  objects  are  not  national,  the  post-oflice 
and  the  light-house  and  the  courts  of  the  United  States  are  not  na- 
tional. 

This  can  be  and  should  be  done  by  the  General  Government,  and  not 
by  States  or  private  persons.  The  Constitution  not  only  imi)Oses  this 
duty  on  the  National  Government,  but  that  it  might  be  discharged  was 
the  principal  reason  for  which  the  National  Government  was  estal)- 
lished.  Iudi\i.duals  and  States  have  no  jurisdiction  over  interstate  or 
international  commerce,  can  not  impose  tolls,  and  have  no  ix)wer  to 
create  even  temporary  obstacles  in  uaviaable  waters  for  the  purpose  of 
their  improvement.  All  the  high  exercises  of  power  which  regulate 
these  two  great  classes  of  commercial  transactions  belong  to  Congress 
alone.  The  General  Government  tak&s  all  the  receipts  and  revenues  of 
commerce.  For  the  general  good  it  prohibits  all  export  dutie-s  and  for- 
bids the  States  from  la^-ing  duties  on  tonnage  without  the  consent  of 
Congress.  It  takes  all  the  receipts  of  commerce;  therefore  where  ex- 
penditures are  needed  for  it  they  should  be  made  by  the  General  Gov- 
ernment. The  limitations  within  which  this  power  should  be  exer- 
cised seem  to  me  not  diflicult  to  state. 

First.  The  public  advantages  must  be  clearly  worth  the  expenditure. 
The  popular  jealousy  of  all  large  outlays  of  public  money  is  natural 
and  reasonable,  and  should  be  respected.  No  item  should  get  a  phice 
among  appropriations  of  this  class  which  can  not  stand  by  itself  and 
vindicate  its  claim  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt  by  its  sure  promise  of 
a  return  many  times  exceeding  the  original  cost. 

Second.  The  commerce  to  be  promoted  most  be  a  commerce  with 
foreign  nations  or  between  different  States. 

Third.  The  sum  appropriated  in  any  one  year  must  fall  within  the 
limits  prescribed  by  a  wise  economy,  having  regard  to  the  condition  of 
the  Treasury  and  to  other  public  needs. 

The  earnest  public  discussion  which  followed  the  passage  of  the  river 
and  harbor  bill  in  the  summer  of  calls  upon  Congress  for  a  care- 
ful re- examination  of  the  policy  upon  which  these  appropriations  rest, 
and  of  every  item  in  detail.  Nothing  Is  healthier  than  public  jealou.sy 
as  to  the  spendmg  of  public  money.  But  it  is  remarkable  when  we 
get  out  of  the  region  of  mere  clamor  to  find  how  little  anybcnly,  speak- 
ing under  a  sense  of  responsibility,  has  been  able  to  bring  against  that 
much-abused  measure. 

April  17,  ISS'2.  the  President  sent  a  special  message  to  Congress  urg- 


32 


iny;  an  appropriation  of  01 0,000  to  close  gaps  in  the  ^Mississippi  levees, 
as  recommended  by  the  INIississippi  Eiver  Commission,  in  addition  toa' 
like  sum  for  which  an  estimate  had  already  been  submitted.  The 
President  expresses  his  own  approval  of  the  plans  of  the  commission. 
He  adds: 

The  immense  losses  and  widespread  suffering  of  the  people  dwelling  near 
the  river  induce  me  to  urge  upon  Congress  the  propriety  of  not  only  making 
an  appropriation  to  close  the  gajis  in  the  levees  occasioned  by  the  recent  floods, 
as  reconinicnded  ))y  tlu-  com  in  issioa,  but  that  Congress  should  inaugurate 
measures  for  the  perniaiieiit  improvenient  of  the  navigation  of  the  river  and  se- 
curity of  the  valley.  It  may  be  that  such  a  system  of  improvement  would  as  it 
progressed  require  the  appropriation  of  twenty  or  thirty  millions  of  dollars; 
even  such  an  expenditure,  extending  as  it  must  over  sevei-al  years,  can  not  be 
regarded  as  extravagant  in  view  of  the  immense  interest  involved.  The  safe 
and  convenient  navigation  of  the  Mississii)pi  is  a  juatter  of  concern  to  all  sec- 
tions of  the  country;  but  to  the  Northwest,  with  its  immense  harvests  needing 
cheap  transportation  to  the  sea,  and  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  river  valley  whose 
lives  and  property  depend  upon  the  proper  construction  of  the  safeguards  which 
protect  them  from  the  floods,  it  is  of  vital  importance  that  a  well-matured  and 
comprehensive  plan  for  improvement  should  l)e  put  into  oi)cration  with  as  lit- 
tle delay  as  possible.  The  cotton  product  of  the  region  subject  to  the  devastat- 
ing floods  is  a  source  of  wealth  to  the  nation  and  of  great  importance  in  keep- 
ing the  balance  of  trade  in  our  favor. 

It  may  not  be  inopportune  to  mention  that  this  Government  has  imposed  and 
collected  some  $70,000,000  by  a  tax  on  cotton,  in  the  production  of  which  the 
po})ulation  of  the  Lower  Mississippi  is  largely  engaged,  and  it  does  not  seem  in- 
equitable to  return  a  portion  of  this  tax  to  those  who  contributed  it,  particularly 
as  such  an  action  will  also  result  in  an  important  gain  to  the  country  at  large, 
and  especially  so  to  the  great  and  rich  States  of  the  Northwest  and  tlie  Missis- 
sippi Valley. 

Congress  differed  with  the  Executive.  A  majority  doubted  the  con- 
stitutional power  to  appropriate  money  to  save  lands  in  the  States  bor- 
dering on  the  Lower  Mississippi  from  overflow  by  that  river.  They 
found  it  ditiicult  to  point  out  a  reason  for  undertaking  to  relieve  at  the 
national  charge  the  land  overflowed  by  the  Mississippi,  which  would 
not  require  the  performance  of  a  like  duty  between  high  and  low  water 
mark  along  the  entire  Atlantic  and  Pacific  coasts  and  on  every  stream 
within  our  borders.  They  therefore  carefully  eliminated  from  the  bill 
all  appropriations  for  levees  and  inserted  an  express  provision  that  "no 
portion  of  this  appropriation  shall  be  expended  to  repair  or  build  levees 
for  the  purpose  of  reclaiming  land  or  preventing  injury  to  lands  by 
overflow. "  I  do  not  think  there  can  be  any  reasonable  doubt  that  the 
levee  system  alone,  not  including  any  work  designed  for  improvement 
in  navigation,  surely  w^ould  have  cost  thirty  million — the  larger  limit 
named  by  the  President.  Some  cautious  judges  estimate  it  at  fifty 
million. 

Congress  reduced  by  a  million  the  sum  recommended  by  the  com- 
mission for  the  river  below  Cairo.  But  they  introduced  S?l,100,000 
for  the  Upper  Mississippi.  The  policy  adopted  by  Congress  saved  to 
the  country  more  than  twenty-nine  millions,  not  improbably  more  than 
fifty  million  as  compared  with  that  of  the  President. 

The  President,  however,  was  of  the  opinion  that  the  bill  contained 
items  which  were  not  of  national  importance.  He  sent  to  Congress  a 
veto  message  in  which  he  specified  no  objectionable  instance  and  re- 
affirmed his  approval  of  the  Mississippi  appropriation.  But  he  declared 
that  some  of  the  objects  provided  for  were  local  only,  and  suggested 
withotit  directly  asserting  that  some  claims  were  inserted  in  the  bill  to 
win  favor  for  others.  But  he  gave  Congress  none  of  the  information  on 
which  he  had  relied.    At  the  next  session  the  House  of  Eepresenta- 


33 


tives  directed  the  Secretary  of  War,  from  whose  Department  the  Presi- 
dent was  naturally  supposed  to  have  derived  the  knowledge  upon  which 
he  acted,  to  inform  them  "whether  any  moneys  appropriated  by  the 
act  of  August  2,  1882,  making  appropriations,  &c.,  were  appropriated 
for  works  or  objects  that  are  not  in  the  interest  of  or  do  not  benefit 
commerce  or  navigation;  and,  if  so,  to  name  such  works  or  objects 
and  the  respective  amounts  so  appropriated." 

The  Secretary  replies  that  he  understands  the  direction  of  the  House 
as  if  the  words  "foreign  or  interstate"  preceded  the  word  "com- 
merce," and  that  he  is  "relieved  by  the  President  from  hesitation  as 
to  the  scope  of  the  response, ' '  and  that  he  has  made  a  new  and  very 
extended  examination  of  the  subjects  covered. 

This  answer,  made  many  months  after  the  passage  of  the  bill,  doubt- 
less was  based  on  all  the  information  in  the  possession  of  the  President 
as  well  as  upon  the  new  and  very  extended  examination  he  had  him- 
self made.  He  specifies  $1,032,000,  about  5  per  cent,  of  the  whole  bill, 
as  not  in  the  interest  of  commerce  and  navigation.  Considering  the 
likelihood  of  difference  of  opinion  upon  a  subject  of  this  kind  this  is  a 
very  strong  and  interesting  concession,  not  only  to  the  merits  of  the 
general  policy  but  of  the  particular  measure.  There  are  very  few  ap- 
propriation bills,  or  bills  made  up  of  items,  in  which  the  majority  who 
pass  them,  the  committee  who  frame  them,  and  even  the  member  who 
reports  them,  would  not  find  a  larger  percentage  of  objection.  The 
difference  between  the  President  and  Congress  was  this:  he  would  add 
twenty  or  thirty  millions  for  Missiasippi  levees  and  strike  ofl"  a  million 
which  he  thinks  for  local  objects  only ;  Congress  would  keep  off  the  twenty 
or  thirty  millions,  but  would  retain  the  one  million  to  be  expended,  how- 
ever, only  if  the  President's  objections  are  removed. 

Not  only  are  the  objections  of  the  Executive,  so  far  as  we  can  learn, 
limited  to  a]K)ut  5  per  cent,  only  of  the  entire  appropriation,  but  a  large 
portion  of  the  items  which  make  that  up  are  such  as  I  think  would 
meet  the  public  approbation.  I  believe  the  President  would  himself 
change  his  mind  on  fuller  information.  I  will  not  go  over  them  all, 
but  I  will  take  those  in  my  own  State.  Three,  and  three  only,  are 
specified  within  the  limits  of  Massachusetts  as  not  being  for  the  inter- 
est or  benefit  of  foreign  or  interstate  commerce  and  navigation.  These 
are:  Plymouth  Harbor,  $14,000;  Wareham  River,  $5,000;  and  Wood's 
Holl,  $50,000.  The  appropriation  of  1882  for  Plymouth  Harbor  was 
made  as  the  result  of  a  special  and  urgent  communication  of  the  Sec- 
retary of  War,  dated  April  7,  1882,  inclosing  a  special  report  of  the  en- 
gineer. This  was  not  inserted  by  any  representative  of  Massachusetts 
in  either  House,  and  first  became  known  to  me  and  my  colleague  when 
our  attention  was  called  to  it  by  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Commerce.  This  famous  historic  harbor  depends  for  its  existence  on 
the  protection  and  preservation  of  Long  Beach,  a  spit  of  sand  project- 
ing two  and  three-quarters  miles  out  to  sea.  The  Secretary  informed 
us  that  the  equinoctial  storm  of  1882  had  made  a  break  over  this,  and 
that  another  of  equal  severity  would  very  probably  destroy  the  harbor 
by  tiiling  the  channel  with  the  sands  of  the  beach.  It  was  recommended 
that  the  sum  of  $14,000,  which  it  would  cost  to  complete  the  break- 
water newly  finished,  be  made  available  at  once,  instead  of  being  ex- 
tended over  two  years,  as  had  been  designed.  This  breakwater  is  so 
extended  as  to  be  an  ample  shelter  for  the  beach  and  save  the  entire 
harbor. 

Ho  3 


34 


The  commercial  reasons  which  render  Plymouth  a  proper  object  of 
national  care  are  well  stated  in  the  engineer's  report  for  1870,  page  458. 

The  State  of  JMassachusetts  contributed  $2,000  to  this  purpose  in  1867. 

Now,  sir,  this  case  of  Plymouth  presents  and  illustrates  the  precise 
issue  which  I  make  with  the  opponents  of  this  policy.  It  has  a  com- 
merce with  foreign  nations  and  among  the  States.  The  public  good  far 
exceeds  the  outlay.  It  is  placed  by  the  Constitution  under  the  care  of 
Congress.  No  other  authority  is  competent  to  do  the  work,  and  no 
other  authoritj'  should  do  the  work,  if  it  were  competent.  It  is  not  for 
the  public  advantage  that  the  commerce  of  New  York  and  Boston 
should  be  the  sole  objects  of  care,  and  that  of  Plymouth  and  Wareham 
should  die  out.  The  large  appropriations  to  remove  the  rocks  of  Hell 
Gate  from  the  approach  to  New  York  harbor  or  to  construct  the  jetties 
w^hich  have  opened  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  do  not  bring  us  a  more 
valuable  return  than  the  aggregate  of  small  appropriations  on  which 
the  commercial  prosperity  of  hundreds  of  Plymouths  and  Warehams 
depend.  The  life  of  the  centers  is  to  be  perserved,  but  the  extremi- 
ties should  not  die. 

Wareham  is  an  equally  strong  case.  The  reports  of  the  engineers 
(1874,  page  218;  1879,  page  303)  give  some  of  the  reasons  which  justify 
the  small  outlay  provided  for  in  the  statute  of  1882.  These  reasons 
have  strengthened  with  the  increase  of  business  since  1879. 


35 


'IIVJ.  pun 

Xq  uof^B 

iiil  iiiil  iiliili  iillii  i 

Reoeived  and  shipped  by  rail. 

§ 

1 

> 

gill  i 

IIII  ifii 

i 

S  15   ??8|S  Is  ^ 

3  u  ---r  i"- 1 

i 

3 

1 

1  i 

M 

oo  : 

'  i 

SSI 

©  o 

\  mm 

j        j  M  IC 

i  g  iiii  ii  i 

i  is                  :§  i 

M            I'''  i 

1 

i  Ii 

o  : 
•  : 

is  i 

:  CI  g  g      ■  g  :  jo 

:  :    <M  :  :  :  :  :  : 

Received  and  shipped  by  water. 

i 

E  i  ii  iiii  i  ii  ii 
i  K  s^^i  i  r  is 

21,200 
15,000 

12,000 
20,700 
382  500 
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36 


There  is  a  smaller  commerce  in  brick,  lime,  hay,  clay,  shells,  wood,  boats,  cem- 
ent, and  similar  coastwise  traflSc. 

Wareham  is  the  nearest  port  to  Sandwich  and  to  the  inland  towns  of  Middle- 
borouj^h,  Bridgewater,  and  Brockton,  the  commerce  and  manufactures  of  each 
of  which  equal  those  of  Wareham.  The  railroad  wharves  of  Wareham  have 
direct  railway  connection  wi^i  thet^e  and  other  tributary  towns,  but  inadequate 
navijifation  facilities  in  Wareham  Harbor  oblige  these  towns  to  receive  their 
water-borne  supplies  via  Fairhaven  and  Sotnerset. 

The  total  tonnage  of  vessels  hailing  from  Wareham  is  6,002  tons,  so  far  as 
known.  The  commerce  of  the  port  is  not,  however,  canned  in  these,  but  more 
generally  is  transported  by  water  in  other  vessels  of  the  United  States. 

The  yearly  arrivals  and  departures  at  this  port  compri.se,  together,  alx)ut 
three  hundred  and  tifty  sailing  vessels  and  also  occasional  steamers,  and  nu- 
merous small  craft.  The  supplies  for  the  iron  mills  are  brought  in  schooners  of 
350  to  600  tons  burden,  manufacturers  considering  it  profitable  to  employ  larger 
vessels  than  formerly  in  freighting  cargoes  of  coal  and  iron.  The  wharves  in 
Wareham  Harbor  are  rendered  difficult  of  approach  for  such  vessels  by  reason 
of  bars  in  the  tortuous  channel.  The  nature  of  the  above-mentioned  industries 
of  this  town  is  such  that  its  railway  traffic  is  dependent  upon  the  facilities  for 
navigation. 

It  is  hard  to  see  by  what  procass  of  reasoning  the  propriety  of  the  ap- 
propriation for  Wood's  Holl  can  be  seriously  called  in  question.  The 
small  expenditure  would  be  abundantly  warrantetl  by  the  demand  for 
a  harbor  of  refuge  and  a  port  for  the  revenue-cutters  which  are  con- 
stantly needed  for  aid  to  the  vessels  which  pass  in  our  harbors  over  the 
foggy  and  dangerous  navigation  of  the  neighboring  Nantucket  Shoals. 
But  it  is  demanded  also  to  construct  a  basin  and  harbor  for  the  United 
States  Fish  Commission,  whose  interesting  work  seems  destined  to 
create  an  abundant  food  supply  for  uncounted  millions  in  the  near 
future. 

Mr.  President,  there  are  few  objects  of  expenditure  which  do  not  perish 
with  the  using.  There  are  fewer  still  which  survive  the  generation 
which  has  created  them.  A  few  works  of  art;  a  few  temples  and  pub- 
lic buildings;  a  few  dwel' Jigs,  kept  for  curiosity  rather  than  occupa- 
tion; a  few  great  libraries  are  all  of  the  possessions  of  our  day  which 
will  survive  a  hundred  years.  The  money  you  have  appropriated  for 
the  Army,  the  Na%y,  the  Post-Oflice,  the  courts,  for  the  cost  of  legisla- 
tion, for  the  diplomatic  service,  for  pensions,  will  leave  no  trace  behind 
when  the  year  in  which  it  has  been  expended  shall  have  passed.  But 
the  works  which  this  bill  authorizes  will  remain,  making  their  annual 
and  perpetual  returns,  instruments  of  commerce,  of  unien,  and  of  peace, 
so  long  as  the  waves  run  to  the  sea  and  the  sea  beats  upon  the  shore. 


O 


